Dauphin County
probation officials are looking into how the 15-year-old charged in the
shooting death of Malik Stern-Jones escaped from authorities' custody Aug. 5.
Also looking into the escape is Abraxas Youth and Family Services, in whose
custody Niejea Stern had been Aug. 5 when he escaped while at the Children's
Resource Center in Harrisburg for questioning, said Pablo Paez of the GEO
Group of Florida, who responded for Abraxas. "This was a unique and
unfortunate situation which is currently under investigation. Abraxas has had
no other escapes from secure detention or secure treatment programs,"
Paez said, adding the company has had a 38-year partnership with Dauphin
County. Amy Richards Harinath, county spokeswoman, said the teen was in
custody of Abraxas Youth and Family Services personnel, with whom the county
contracts for services. "No county probation officers were
present," she said. Jeffrey Haste, chairman of the county commissioners,
said anytime there is an escape, whether from work release or other custody,
the county reviews procedures and how they occurred. Niejea Stern, charged
Aug. 20 with homicide in the shooting death Aug. 19 of Malik Stern-Jones in
Hall Manor, escaped at the Children's Resource Center, where he had been
taken for an interview on an unrelated matter, District Attorney Ed Marsico
said Tuesday. Stern was serving time in a juvenile detention center in
connection with a robbery charge, Marsico said. Haste said from what he has
been told, detention officers "did mostly everything they normally do.
The kid was a persistent kid." He said Chad Libby, county probation
services director, is looking into the matter. Marsico said Stern's legs were
unshackled, but not his wrists, when he asked to use the bathroom. He fled,
eluding detention guards and police. Haste said the escapes are among other
matters scrutinized when the county's contract with Abraxas comes up for
review annually.

Abraxas I Youth and
Family Services Center
Marienville, Pennsylvania
CornellAugust 22, 2014 12:15 AM
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteWashington County improperly placed
juvenile offenders, fired employee claimsA former Washington County
juvenile probation officer has sued the county, its president judge and other
officials, saying he was fired after he blew the whistle about allegedly
inappropriate placement of children in detention facilities. Common Pleas
President Judge Debbie O’Dell Seneca also is named in the suit for allegedly
recording conversations in the courthouse after juvenile court officials
became suspicious about the number of recommendations for youths to be placed
with Abraxas Youth & Family Services. According to the lawsuit, David
Scrip, of Monongahela, worked for 25 years as a juvenile probation officer
before he was fired in February for disregarding Judge O’Dell Seneca’s orders
to halt accusations that his supervisor, Dan Clements, was having a romantic
relationship with Beth Stutzman, a recruiter for Abraxas. Mr. Scrip alleges
that he and other probation officers were pressured to make recommendations
to the court that youths be placed in an Abraxas facility, regardless of
whether it was the best place for them. When court officials became
suspicious of the unexplained increase in placements in the facility, the officials
were illegally recorded through a security system that had been placed in the
courthouse under orders from Judge O’Dell Seneca, according to the lawsuit.
Judge O’Dell Seneca rigged the recording system to “eavesdrop upon what was
being said in the courtrooms of the Washington County courthouse,” said
lawyer Noah Geary in the lawsuit, filed Monday in the Common Pleas Court and
also submitted to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the
Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission. According to county Controller Mike
Namie, payments to Abraxas increased by about 15 percent during the years in
question, rising from $453,029 in 2011 to $520,901 in 2012, then
$595,090 in 2013. Mr. Scrip is claiming he was wrongfully terminated and that
his civil rights were violated. He is seeking unspecified monetary damages. A
woman who answered the phone at the juvenile probation office said Mr.
Clements had no comment and hung up on a reporter. An official from the GEO
Group Inc., the Boca Raton, Fla.-based parent company of Abraxas, said he
couldn’t comment regarding whether Ms. Stutzman was still employed as a
recruiter. The company cited a 2012 investigation by the Administrative
Office of the Pennsylvania Courts, triggered by an anonymous letter from Mr.
Scrip to Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille and other court
officials, detailing his concerns about inappropriate placements in Abraxas.
"Abraxas has been receiving Washington County youth placements since
1981,” said a statement from Pablo E. Paez, GEO Group vice president of
corporate relations. “This alleged conflict of interest was fully
investigated approximately two years ago by the Administrative Office of the
Pennsylvania Courts, and the investigation did not substantiate these
allegations." Mr. Geary said the AOPC investigation was “a sham” that
never sought to establish whether Mr. Clements and Ms. Stutzman were having a
relationship and whether that presented a conflict. For example, Ms. Stutzman
wasn’t interviewed by investigators, he said. Mr. Geary said the results were
manipulated by Judge O’Dell Seneca and Tom Jess, the director of the county
Family Court Center, who was also named in the lawsuit. Mr. Jess
declined to comment. AOPC communications coordinator Art Heinz said he could
not comment about pending litigation and couldn’t confirm the existence of
any past or present investigation. Calls for comment to Judge O’Dell Seneca
were directed to court administrator Patrick Grimm, who declined comment.
February 22, 2008 The Derrick
Two Philadelphia men were charged for their actions during separate riots
that broke out this week at Cornell Abraxas I in Marienville. State police
said Joseph Clark, 18, and Lenny Scott Cabrera, 18, were involved in both
riots that occurred at the facility Monday and Tuesday. Clark was charged
with one count of aggravated assault and two counts of riot, police said.
They said Cabrera was charged with two counts of aggravated assault and two
counts of riot. Both men were arraigned before District Judge George F.
Gregory in Tionesta. They were placed in the Warren County jail on $25,000
bail. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Tuesday. Police said three
juveniles involved in both riots and five other involved in the Monday riot
will face similar charges.

January
11, 2007 The Courier ExpressIn a last-ditch effort to forestall a strike, representatives of Abraxas
I and members of PSSU Local 668 have agreed to meet Friday, according to a
press release issued by Abraxas Wednesday. Abraxas I is
planning to operate through any strike with qualified employees from other
facilities and all employees who want to continue to work, according to the
press release. "Any employee who wishes to work may do so at the current
wages, benefits and other terms or conditions of employment," the
release said. "Abraxas I will not implement its final offer until an
agreement is reached." Abraxas I has informed
its client-referring agencies about the strike and the company's plans to
operate in the interim. It has also decided to stop admitting new residents
and plans to accelerate the discharge of residents who are approved for
discharge by the courts, said the press release. On Jan. 3, Abraxas Youth and
Family Services received notification that the members of SEIU Local 668 rejected
the company's offer of Dec. 21. Local 668 also issued a 10-day strike notice,
which indicates it plans to strike at 12:01 a.m. Sunday. James Newsome,
program director at Abraxas I, said, "We are very disappointed that the
union and its members rejected this offer. It was a very fair offer given the
economic realities of the Youth and Family Services business. "Our most
recent offer includes wage increases ranging from 8.5 percent to 12.25
percent over the proposed three-year agreement," he said. "While we
propose increases in employee contributions for medical benefits, our wage
proposal also ensures that all employees would receive a real wage increase
to offset the increased employee medical contribution. Our request for
increased employee medical contributions is consistent with what many unions
and employers have agreed to in the face of rising costs of health
care." Abraxas I proposes maintaining an HMO
medical plan for current employees, but employees hired after ratification
would only be able to participate in a PPO plan. Newsome said the HMO plan is
a very expensive benefit. "The only way we can continue to afford to
provide the HMO is to make it available for current employees only," he
said. "The union recognized the fairness of our economic proposals,
because they told us that if we were willing to agree to a union shop or fair
share - union security - they would recommend ratification. We refused to
agree to a union shop or fair share because we believe employees should have
a right to decide for themselves whether they wish
to belong to the union and pay union dues, not be forced to do so,"
Newsome said. Abraxas I houses approximately 274 adolescents and provides
drug and alcohol counseling, as well as operating a private school, for its
residents.

Abraxas
CenterForest, Pennsylvania
Cornell
July 8, 2004
A Tamaqua 16-year-old, who was committed to a juvenile center after being
charged with shooting a friend in the face with a gun he stole from a borough
pawn shop, escaped after attending a funeral Wednesday, police said.
Duane R. Allen II was court-ordered to attend the funeral and told two
workers taking him back to the Cornell Abraxas center in Marienville, Forest County, that he was sick, state police at Hazleton
said. The workers stopped about 2:30 p.m. at Pilot Truck Stop in
Sugarloaf Township, Luzerne County, where Allen fled from the worker
accompanying him to the restroom, police said. (The Morning Call)

Adams County Jail
Adams County, Pennsylvania
AramarkMarch
26, 2009 The Evening Sun
Adams County will soon get into the culinary business - in jail. Starting in
June, the county will be providing its own food service at Adams County
Prison. The current contractor, Aramark Food Services, chose to cancel its
contract with the county effective June 18. County Solicitor John Hartzell
said the contract allowed for Aramark to choose not to renew with 90 days
notice. The contractor planned on raising its rates by 25 cents per meal per
prisoner, about a 5 percent increase. The county did not agree with the rate
hike, believing they could do the job cheaper, or at least at the same cost
as the contractor prior to the hike, Commissioner George Weikert said.
Commissioners also said prison officials were not happy with the quality of
the food served by Aramark. Weikert said several factors have been taken into
account in starting a county service, including cost, food quality and
nutritional value. Commissioner Glenn Snyder said some of the cost will be
curtailed with the county in control because the county can use vegetables
grown in the prison's new garden. Vegetables from the garden were used last
year, but there was no reduction in the contractor's cost.Allegheny Academy
Allegheny, Pennsylvania
The Academy System
September 14, 2003
Drastic disciplinary action has been taken at The Academy in the wake of the
car crash death of a 17-year-old boy from York County who died after he
escaped from the juvenile center Sept. 14. Attempts also are being made
to prevent future escapes from the facility, which has experienced a rash of
runaways since April, said Joe Daugerdas, executive director of The Academy,
formerly known as Allegheny Academy. But he declined to specify actions
because the state Department of Welfare is investigating the Sept. 14 incident
in which Troy Lake of Dallastown, York County, escaped and was killed when he
crashed a stolen car on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Somerset. Lake was
pronounced dead at the scene at 3:40 a.m., but his absence from The Academy
wasn't reported to police until 6:30 a.m., when staffers found his bed was
empty. Daugerdas said he could not say how many employees were
disciplined for the oversight, but on the night Lake and two other teens
escaped, only one staff member was in charge of making required bed checks
every 15 minutes. That policy has been changed to rotate responsibility
for bed checks to everyone working at night, Daugerdas said. Besides
interviewing all eight staff members on duty that night, investigators also
talked with the other two escapees, who were picked up on the morning of
Sept. 14 in McKees Rocks, he said. The pair spent the night of their escape
in the woods behind The Academy and left the area on foot when the sun came
up. Although they shared with investigators details of how the three
got away, Daugerdas said he could not make that information public.
Welfare Department spokeswoman Carey Miller said the department's
investigation could take up to one month and result in requiring a plan of
corrective action or action against its license. Besides the internal
changes, Daugerdas has signed an agreement brokered by James Rieland,
Allegheny County juvenile court administrator, that calls for The Academy to
call Baldwin Borough police within 10 minutes after a juvenile is discovered
missing from the center. Although that facility is in the Hays section
of Pittsburgh, its property abuts a residential Baldwin Borough
neighborhood. The agreement requires The Academy to provide police with
the name, age, race, physical description and home address of the escapee, as
well as a photo if one is available, and staffers will notify police if and
when escapees are found. The agreement also calls for quarterly
meetings between Academy officials and Baldwin police to discuss issues of concern.
Baldwin Borough Police Chief Chris Kelly said he has been trying since April
to get Academy officials to discuss what they planned to do about the number
of escapes from the facility since that time. Kelly, who vented some of
his frustrations at a Baldwin council meeting the day after Lake's death,
claimed that 12 Academy juveniles have escaped in seven incidents since
April, including the July 24 escape of two girls from a van driving them to
the center. Daugerdas said eight juveniles have escaped in five
incidents and that all except Lake were found and returned. Kelly has
expressed his concerns in recent months in letters to Daugerdas and officials
of the county's juvenile court system, which orders delinquent nonviolent
offenders to The Academy's day and evening program for rehabilitation.
About 170 nonviolent juvenile offenders are in the program now. Anne
Edwards, an Agnew Road neighbor of The Academy, also has complained. She said
she predicted to Daugerdas that nothing would be done about her concerns
until someone got hurt. She was not happy last week when that prediction came
true. "I am saddened that it was a child's death that will bring
attention to The Academy's lack of supervision and control," she
said. Also at last week's council meeting, a resident of Edward Drive,
whose car was stolen by Lake, asked council for some relief from escapees
from the Academy. Kelly said it was the second time the family had had a car
stolen by a youth from The Academy. Council approved a motion authorizing
Kelly to "take whatever action is necessary to curb the runaways,"
and to hold The Academy to the promises it originally made to the borough to
contact Baldwin police as soon as a juvenile escapes from the center.
Notification didn't always happen with the escapes this spring and summer, he
said. Some were reported to him by Academy officials long after the
juveniles escaped and others were reported by residents who spotted the
runaways in their bushes and sheds. Most of the juveniles who have
escaped from the facility have been out-of-county youths held temporarily at
The Academy in preparation for entering Summit Academy, a residential
juvenile facility in Butler County. Housing the juveniles destined for
Summit is an expansion of the original program presented when the facility
opened amid much protest in September 1989. Academy officials stressed
at that time that they planned to operate an after-school, day and evening
program for nonviolent offenders. The juveniles would be brought to the
center in vans after school and stay through the evening, when they would be
returned via vans to their homes. But about five years ago, The Academy
started to house juveniles overnight. Now roughly 50 juveniles are at the
center each night. Half of them are like Lake, awaiting a transfer to Summit
Academy. The other half of the overnight population are male juveniles
who have broken the rules of the day and evening program and are required as
punishment to stay overnight for a period of time. Those juveniles used
to be housed at Shuman Detention Center until Shuman became overcrowded, said
Rieland, the county's juvenile court administrator. He called the day
and evening program "a good service provided at a relatively inexpensive
cost" and said he still believes it's a safe program for nonviolent
juvenile offenders from Allegheny County. Rieland said The Academy has
a good track record, since it has operated for about 20 years -- 14 at the
present site -- without a major problem until the recent incident. If
the state takes any action at The Academy, it is likely to be only against
the overnight program and not the day and evening program, he said.
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette)

September
18, 2003
Joyce Lake had just returned home Sunday evening when she got a call from
officials at the Allegheny Academy juvenile detention center asking if she
knew where her 17-year-old son Troy was. "I said, 'Yes, I know
where he is. He's at the morgue,' " said Lake,
who learned of her son's death from state troopers, who visited her home in
Dallastown, York County, at 10 a.m. Sunday. Lake was killed at around
3:40 a.m. Sunday when he lost control of the stolen car he was driving on the
Pennsylvania Turnpike in Somerset. He was thrown from the car when it hit an
embankment and was pronounced dead at the scene. At the time of his
death, Lake was supposed to be sleeping at Allegheny Academy in Pittsburgh's
Hays section, where he was sent after violating his parole. Lake had been
found guilty of stealing an all-terrain vehicle, and then violated his parole
by getting caught for underage drinking, his mother said. But staff
members at Allegheny Academy didn't notice his absence until almost three
hours after his death and apparently didn't know that he had been killed in a
car crash until they talked to his mother at around 7 p.m. Sunday. It
was at 6:30 a.m. Sunday when an employee of Allegheny Academy called Baldwin
Borough police to report that three teens had escaped. Though it is
located in Pittsburgh, Allegheny Academy abuts a Baldwin residential
neighborhood and academy staff are supposed to alert
Baldwin police whenever program participants escape, said Baldwin Police
Chief Chris Kelly. About 15 minutes before academy staff reported the
escape, Baldwin police were notified by state police that a car registered to
a Baldwin resident was involved in a fatal traffic accident on the turnpike.
It turned out to be the car that Lake was driving. The car was stolen from a
resident of Edward Drive, located a short distance from the academy, Kelly
said. Kelly said it appears the escapees left the center Saturday night
but that their absence wasn't discovered until Sunday morning when it was
time for residents to wake up. The other two escapees were picked up in
McKees Rocks Sunday morning. Allegheny Academy Director Joseph
Daugerdaus said he is trying to find out why the center's policy of
performing bed checks every 15 minutes was not followed Saturday night.
"It's not just open the door and check. Our policy states that you go in
and you check to see their skin, to make sure they are really in the
bed," Daugerdaus said. "We have to figure out why the
procedure was not followed and why it was not discovered that they were gone.
Whoever did not do what they were supposed to do will be terminated," he
said. Daugerdaus said he expects an investigation from the state
Department of Welfare as well. All escapes from the center are reported to
the department. He said eight employees were on duty at the time -- a number
that exceeds the welfare department's requirement of one staff per 16
residents. Daugerdaus said it was the first time that any program
participant who escaped was not caught and returned safely. "What
happened is certainly a tragedy and it's definitely an exception and we hope
it never happens again," Daugerdaus said. Daugerdaus said Lake was
sent to Allegheny Academy in preparation for being assigned to a residential
facility. He was to be transferred to another center within days. Joyce
Lake plans to bury her son today. But after the funeral service she will
start her search for answers in her son's death. "I know he wasn't
a perfect kid and he did have some problems. But I don't think he deserved to
die. I have a court order that says my son was supposed to be under supervision
at all times. That's what they were supposed to be doing for him."
(Post-Gazette.com)

Allegheny County
Jail
Allegheny, Pennsylvania
CorizonOct 15, 2016
post-gazette.com Lawsuit alleges jail staff failed to provide tube feedings to inmateA man whose esophagus was severed from his stomach in a shooting three
years ago is suing the medical staff at the Allegheny County Jail and Corizon
Health after he said they failed to provide his required five daily tube
feedings, resulting in his being hospitalized twice for malnourishment and
related health problems, including a heart attack. Christopher Wallace, 30,
of Lincoln-Lemington, was arrested Feb. 12, 2015, on charges that he robbed
two banks two days earlier. Bret Grote, the attorney representing Wallace in
his lawsuit, said his client’s Medicaid had been discontinued, and he could
no longer get the tubes he needed to receive nutrition. Wallace robbed the
banks, Mr. Grote said, to get money to buy the feeding tubes. At the time of
Wallace’s arrest, he was taken to UPMC Mercy, where hospital records showed
that the 6-foot 4-inch man weighed 77 pounds, the lawsuit said. The
complaint, filed in U.S. District Court, also names as defendants jail Warden
Orlando Harper, county Executive Rich Fitzgerald and Dr. Abimbola Talabi, who
was interim medical director at the jail. The lawsuit says Wallace was
released from UPMC Mercy on Feb. 16, 2015, with instructions to jail medical
staff to provide five tube feedings each day. Mr. Grote contends the nurses
and physicians “acted with deliberate indifference” to Wallace’s medical
needs and failed to feed him properly, providing him with less than half of
the required feedings per day, and on some days, the complaint said, not
feeding him at all. “Mr. Wallace complained to these nurses about his need
for tube feedings. His complaints were ignored and no measures were taken to
ensure that he was provided with his medically prescribed tube feedings,” the
complaint said. On March 2, 2015, Wallace lost consciousness in the jail
infirmary and was rushed back to UPMC Mercy, diagnosed with emphysema, severe
malnutrition, hypoglycemia and hypothermia, among other conditions, the
lawsuit said. “UPMC medical records indicate that Mr. Wallace was suffering
from ‘severe protein-calorie malnutrition [consistent with] starvation,’” Mr.
Grote wrote. “His condition was further described as ‘emaciated.’” A week
later, Wallace was returned to the jail, and, the lawsuit alleges, he was fed
even less. “On some days he was not provided any tube feedings, and on others
he received less than half of what he was prescribed,” according to the
complaint. “There are no records that Mr. Wallace was provided any tube
feedings during this period.” A week later, he was again rushed back to
Mercy, having a heart attack in the ambulance on the way there, Mr. Grote
said. He was kept at Mercy for 19 days and released back to the jail on April
3. According to the complaint, from that date until his release from custody
on May 30, 2015, he received all of his feedings. “In addition to the
deliberate indifference of medical staff, the severe and nearly-fatal
injuries plaintiff suffered were the result of systemic deficiencies in the
provision of medical care at ACJ during this time that were caused by
policies and practices that ACJ, Corizon, and Allegheny County officials knew
were resulting in constitutional violations,” Mr. Grote said. Mr. Fitzgerald,
in 2015, refused to renew the county’s contract with Tennessee-based Corizon
after repeated problems were reported — including the death of seven inmates
in 2014.Allegheny County Controller Chelsa
Wagner issued an audit in 2014, reporting that Corizon failed to maintain
required staffing levels, failed to keep complete and accurate medical
records and was failing to provide appropriate care to inmates.Because of that audit, Mr. Grote alleges, county officials knew of the
potential danger inmates at the jail faced.“County Executive Fitzgerald ... had been repeatedly contacted about
health care issues at ACJ by other government officials in the months leading
up to Mr. Wallace’s incarceration. He took no action to remedy the
situation,” the lawsuit said. “Warden Harper received reports from staff and
inmates constantly about health care inadequacies. He took no action to
remedy the situation either.”A spokeswoman for Mr. Fitzgerald said
she could not comment on pending litigation. A spokeswoman for Corizon also
would not comment, citing the lawsuit and patient privacy laws.The lawsuit includes claims for medical malpractice and for due process
violations under the 14th Amendment, including deliberate indifference to
serious medical needs.Wallace is scheduled to plead guilty
to the bank robbery charges Nov. 14.Jul 12, 2015 houstonchronicle.comFamily suing jail, health care provider after inmate's death

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The family of an
inmate who died in a Pittsburgh jail earlier this year is suing the jail and
its health care provider. Tiara Smart, one of the children of 39-year-old
Frank Smart Jr., of Pittsburgh, filed the wrongful death lawsuit Friday
against Allegheny County Jail and Corizon Health Inc. over Smart's death. The
complaint alleges that Smart's requests for medication were ignored and that
he was handcuffed and shackled while having a seizure. He was taken to UPMC
Mercy, where he died shortly after midnight on Jan. 5. George Kontos, Tiara
Smart's attorney, said the jail failed its duty to provide for Smart's
safety. The county medical examiner ruled this week that Smart died from his
seizure disorder, but that being restrained was a "significant
condition" in his death. The manner of death remains undetermined. A
Corizon spokesman said the Tennessee-based firm hasn't seen the complaint,
but stands by its statement Thursday that Smart's medicines were ordered
within 10 minutes of his arrival at a medical intake center and administered
properly. Kontos, however, said that Smart's death from the seizure disorder
"certainly belies their contention that he was appropriately medicated
at the appropriate time." Smart's death and others in the past 18 months
prompted the county to not renew Corizon's contract past its Aug. 31
expiration date. Allegheny Health Network, a Pittsburgh-based hospital chain
owned by health insurer Highmark Inc., will take over Sept. 1. A county
spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawsuit.Jun 7, 2015 post-gazette.comAllegheny County controller plans
new audit of contract with jail health care provider

As Allegheny County moves closer
to the end of its contract with Corizon Health, the controller’s office will
perform a second audit of the county’s contract with the embattled jail
health care provider. Controller Chelsa Wagner made the announcement at the
jail oversight board meeting Thursday, nearly two
weeks after county officials announced they will not renew the contract with
the Tennessee-based firm that expires at the end of August. The agreement
included three one-year options that could have moved it into 2018. “I think
we need to memorialize exactly where we are as Corizon is leaving,” said the
board’s chairman, Common Pleas Judge Joseph Williams III, who requested the
audit. Fieldwork for the audit, set to begin Wednesday, will follow the same
process as one last year that found continuing problems with the medical care
at the jail. An entrance conference with Corizon is scheduled for June 17.
Corizon oversaw an inmate mortality rate here that was double national norms
for jails last year. Four inmates have died this year. County Executive Rich
Fitzgerald announced May 22 that the county will bring the jail infirmary
operation in-house, but he has yet to name what Judge Williams’ called
Thursday the “medical giants and universities” set to be involved. In May,
the judge said Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, UPMC
and Allegheny Health Network “have agreed that they’ll partner in different
ways to help us get on track as to where we ought to be with respect to
health care” at the jail. Judge Williams told reporters after the meeting
that he wasn’t sure how much the new system would cost but was certain it
would include more doctors and more psychiatrists and some current staff. The
county paid Corizon $11.5 million for its first year running the infirmary.
Also during the meeting, Bret Grote, legal director for the Abolitionist Law
Center and other advocates from the Allegheny County Jail Health Justice
Project, called for the resignation or firing of jail Warden Orlando Harper.
Austin Davis, executive assistant to Mr. Fitzgerald, said the warden has the
“full support of our administration.” County Councilman John DeFazio said a
public hearing on jail health issues is forthcoming.

May 25, 2015 post-gazette.com

Pennsylvania: Two more dead,
Corizon is out

In the wake of the deaths of two
Allegheny County Jail inmates in one day this week, county Executive Rich
Fitzgerald announced Friday that he will not renew the contract with jail
infirmary manager Corizon Health, allowing it to expire at the end of August.
The contract included three one-year options that could have taken it into
2018. The county instead will bring the jail infirmary operation in-house,
working with as-yet-unnamed medical professionals, he said. “We have been
working with … some of these folks in the community in our ‘eds and meds’
environment to put together an organizational structure that would allow this
to happen,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “In light of what happened just this week,
we think it was important to make this announcement publicly.” The latest two
deaths bring to four the number of county inmates who have died this year. In
2014, a total of seven died. The decision not to renew the Corizon contract,
building for months, came one day after the two
deaths, one at a local hospital and the other at the lockup. Neither Timothy
James Leininger, 27, nor Monty Crawford Jr., 23, had adult criminal records.
Both were awaiting trial and had documented mental health issues. Autopsies
were pending the results of lab tests. Mr. Leininger was arrested Jan. 9 by
University of Pittsburgh police and charged with terroristic threats. On the
date of his arrest, David Yankura, a psychiatrist at Western Psychiatric
Institute and Clinic, asked Pitt police Officer Mallory Skrbin “what would
happen if an individual was charged with terroristic threats,” she wrote in a
criminal complaint. Dr. Yankura and a colleague told the officer that Mr.
Leininger was brought to Western Psych that day for an evaluation and became
“agitated,” the complaint says. The worker reported that Mr. Leininger told
him he wouldn’t go to a shelter. “I'm gonna stab Becky, and I’m gonna smash
you,” Mr. Leininger said, and “jumped up from the couch, clenched his fists
and arms, stepped towards” the worker, the complaint continued. Below:
Criminal complaint by University of Pittsburgh police against Timothy
Leininger Later Dr. Yankura told police that Mr. Leininger “needed to be
incarcerated,” according to the complaint. UPMC, which includes Western
Psych, declined to talk Friday about protocols for handling patients who make
threats. Of roughly 100 Pitt police officers, 32 have undergone training in
dealing with mental health crises since 2010, according to the county
Department of Human Services. Pitt Police Chief James K. Loftus wants all of
his officers to eventually get the training, according to a university
spokesman. Mr. Leininger was taken to jail and failed to make bail set at
$10,000. “Why didn’t Western Psych put him in the hospital instead, because
he needed help,” said his mother, Shelley Leininger. “I don’t think he should
have been put in jail for that.” Marc Cherna, director of the Department of
Human Services, noted that the jail has become a “revolving door” for many
mentally ill residents since the 2008 closure of Mayview State Hospital in
South Fayette. Court records show that Mr. Leininger was evaluated by a psychiatrist
a month after the arrest. She cleared him with recommendations, including
that he comply with a treatment plan and live with his mother. Efforts to get
him out of jail and home pending trial culminated in a hearing Thursday at
which bond was reduced to zero. But by that time, Mr. Leininger was at UPMC
Mercy. On Tuesday, detectives told the family that ​Mr.
Leininger had been rushed to the hospital, unresponsive and in cardiac arrest
after a “medical emergency” at the jail, his grandmother, Barbara Leininger,
said. He died Thursday at 3:47 p.m. Ms. Leininger said her grandson had
behavioral problems for years and had made threats before. The family links
at least some of his mental health issues to a benign tumor at the base of
his brain that caused him nausea and headaches as a child and, doctors say,
can lead to behavioral and learning problems. Mr. Leininger had surgery to
remove the tumor last year and took steroid pills after, which his mother
said he would have had to take the rest of his life. He lived most of his
life with his mother and grandmother in Ross. “He’d be here for a while, but
when he felt insecure, he would go to the hospital,” Ms. Leininger said,
though she wasn’t sure exactly what led him to Western Psych in January. She
said they last saw him in December. Mr. Leininger leaves behind an
18-month-old son named Karol, who the family said is in the foster system in
New York. Mr. Crawford was arrested in December 2013, when a 13-year-old girl
accused him of repeatedly, over five years, pushing her into sex acts. He was
charged with rape of a child and nine related charges. In May 2014, the
county Behavioral Assessment Unit deemed him incompetent “and not likely to
regain competence,” according to his court file. An October follow-up report
indicated that he “would benefit from education in the legal process.” By
March, the unit found that he regained competency following a “lengthy stay”
at an inpatient facility. His trial was set for July 13. Andrea Crawford, 46,
of Homewood, said that when she last spoke with her son on Sunday, he did not
report anything out of the ordinary. He died Thursday at 8:20 p.m. The other
two inmate deaths this year were 49-year-old Timothy Melvin Haskell, of West
View, in April, and Frank Smart, 39, of the Hill District, in January. Warden
Orlando Harper said the jail has drafted a policy for “compassionate release”
under which staff would ask judges for permission to release certain very ill
inmates. Tennessee-based Corizon took over the infirmary Sept. 1, 2013, and
last year saw seven inmate deaths — a mortality rate double
the national norms for jails. Corizon shaved about $1 million from the cost
of health care at the jail, bringing it to $11.5 million a year. The jail
infirmary had been run by a nonprofit entity tied to the county Health
Department. Contributing to the cost savings were the dismissals of most of
the doctors who had served the jail. Inmates complained about long waits for
appointments and medicine. In a statement, Corizon said the decision to part
ways was mutual.

May 9, 2015 post-gazette.comAs an advocacy group called for
replacement of Corizon Health as medical provider at Allegheny County Jail,
the Tennessee-based company announced Thursday that it has hired a permanent
medical director. The firm, which was hired at the jail in September 2013,
has been under fire for months over the level of care provided at the jail,
where the death rate for inmates is about two times the national average for
jails. On Thursday, a group known as the jail’s Health Justice Project called
for replacement of the for-profit company at a rally and in a letter to
members of Allegheny County Council. “Enough is enough. We’ve been seeing
this for years,” said Julia Johnson of the advocacy group, citing jail deaths
as far back as 2010 that she called “appalling.” In particular, the group
focused on the Jan. 5 death of Frank Smart, who — according to his mother,
Tomi Harris — died at UPMC Mercy after he failed to receive seizure
medication at the jail. Amie Downs, spokeswoman for county Executive Rich
Fitzgerald, said the county hadn’t received the letter and would have no
comment. The group also carried its concerns to the monthly meeting of the
county’s Jail Oversight Board. There, Judge Joseph Williams, president of the
board, said the county is working to deal with inmates who come to the jail
with health issues, a complex “matrix” that begins with other societal ills
like drug addiction and unemployment. “We don’t have the capacity to deal
with this the way we should,” he said, telling protesters they were “shallow”
if they thought the jail could solve the problems itself. Judge Williams said
the county has been working on a plan to supplement the work of Corizon with
help from area health facilities, but he said that plan isn’t ready yet.
After the meeting, he said the county is moving “as fast as we can” to
address the situation. Warden Orlando Harper told the board the county
recently took one step in that direction, hiring Nora Gillespie to monitor
Corizon’s compliance with its contract. Meanwhile, Corizon told the board it
has hired a new, permanent medical director. Since December, Abimbola Talabi
has served as interim director. She told the board that a new medical
director, Donald Stechschulte, will start on a part-time basis this month and
begin full-time duties in August. In a statement, Corizon said it treated
Smart “quickly and efficiently.” In general, it said, the jail receives
inmates with myriad health problems and “we are committed to doing all we can
to restore them to health.”

April 3, 2015 Post-Gazette.com

A spokesman for Corizon Health.,
the Tennessee-based firm that took over the Allegheny County jail infirmary
in 2013, said in a statement, in part: “We are confident in the care we
provide." Up to four local institutions are exploring a partnership with
Allegheny County to help with its embattled health care system at the county
jail. But no one can say exactly what that could mean for health care there.
Common Pleas Judge Joseph K Williams III, head of the jail oversight board,
announced at its monthly meeting Thursday that Carnegie Mellon University,
the University of Pittsburgh, UPMC and Allegheny Health Network “have agreed
that they’ll partner in different ways to help us get on track as to where we
ought to be with respect to health care” at the jail. He could provide almost
no details about the partnership, though, and the county would say only that
it’s “continuing to have conversations with various stakeholders” about the
matter. Spokeswoman Amie Downs said in a statement, in part, that the hope is
“that we can come to agreement to help facilitate medical services” at the
jail. Allegheny Health Network spokesman Dan Laurent said in an email that
officials there have been discussing a “potential partnership with the County
regarding health services at the jail and that we are working with County
executives to explore how best we can provide assistance.” Representatives
from the other institutions were unable to immediately provide information
without more details. A spokesman for Corizon Health., the Tennessee-based
firm that took over the infirmary on Sept. 1, 2013, said in a statement, in
part: “We are confident in the care we provide, and we welcome the
opportunity to work with local universities, medical systems and Allegheny
County on a collaborative approach to medical care.” It’s been nearly three
months since county manager William McKain told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
that the county is “considering a number of options, as well as the inclusion
and engagement of additional stakeholders in the conversations about
improving the delivery of medical services” at the jail. Corizon oversaw an
inmate mortality rate that was double national norms for jails last year, and
a scathing audit by county Controller Chelsa Wagner’s office cited continuing
problems with the medical care there.

Mar 28, 2015 triblive.com

Fired psychiatrist at Allegheny
County Jail: Contraband rules unclear A
psychiatrist fired from the Allegheny County Jail says guards put security
rules ahead of inmate welfare. Dr. Charolette Hoffman, the jail's only
full-time psychiatrist, had a week of training and saw patients for a day
when guards caught her bringing in contraband — cigarettes, lighters, matches
and scissors — for a third time. Warden Orlando Harper revoked Hoffman's
security clearance March 4. Hoffman, 68, of Portersville said she wasn't
trained properly on what she could and couldn't bring into the jail. “There
were a lot of rules that you only found out when you screwed up,” Hoffman
said Thursday. “It doesn't have to work that way. Ideally, there would be
some flexibility, especially in an area of such concern. It seems like the
security is a greater concern than the inmates.” Harper said Hoffman received
training about contraband and that he and the deputy warden spoke to her
after her first two violations. The jail's contraband policy follows a
national standard, Harper said. “The Allegheny County Jail takes very
seriously the responsibility to provide health care to inmates, including
psychiatric care. That responsibility also includes ensuring that the safety
and security of the facility is protected and balanced against the other
needs, which is what the contraband policy is intended to do,” Harper said in
a statement. Hoffman said there is a great need for a psychiatrist at the
jail. The few patients she worked with hadn't seen a psychiatrist in months,
she said. Corizon Health, the Tennessee-based company running health care at
the jail, has started a national search to fill Hoffman's spot. Hoffman said
she doesn't want her old job back. She now works for NHS Human Services in
Penn Hills providing in-house psychiatric care. “It is as wonderful as the
jail was terrible,” Hoffman said.

Jun 8, 2014 post-gazette.com

Nurses tasked with medicating
nearly 700 inmates per shift at the infirmary at the Allegheny County Jail
are not sleeping at night due to "trepidation" over facing their
daily workload, their colleagues testified Thursday before the county's Jail
Oversight Board. Board members said they want to form a subcommittee to
examine staffing concerns and questions about inmate care arising after
Corizon Health Inc. took over management of the infirmary Sept. 1. Common
Pleas Judge Joseph K. Williams III -- presiding over the meeting in the
absence of Judge Donna Jo McDaniel, board president and Common Pleas judge --
said county officers, board members and Corizon officials could "put
their heads together" and come up with strategies to present at the
board's next meeting, scheduled for September. He said he believes Judge
McDaniel intends to have these discussions over the summer. "This is the
third time I've been here, and I've heard innuendo that care is being
compromised," Judge Williams said. "I'm not interested in Corizon's
philosophy of care. I'm interested in dealing with the reduction in staff and
smaller inventory of drugs available." Two nurses at the infirmary,
Teresa Latham and Sister Barbara Finch, said nurses dispensing medication are
responsible for six or seven pods apiece, each of which includes 100 inmates.
Because nurses do not pre-pour the medication, they said, rounds are
considerably arduous and time-consuming. Corizon officials presented board
members with a health services report detailing improvements in intake
procedure and pre-screening. Jail medical director Michael Patterson said
doctors are working with the Allegheny County Health Department to develop
more comprehensive screenings for sexually transmitted infections. Currently
the infirmary only screens based on symptoms presented. That practice may
miss a portion of the jail's "high-risk population," he said. Dr.
Patterson added that a persistent concern is the long waiting list for
referral for psychiatric care at Torrance State Hospital. Close to 20 inmates
are currently awaiting mental health treatment at
the state hospital, though that number has recently been as high as 30 or 40,
Corizon officials said. Though Corizon's mental health director recently
resigned, the Tennessee-based firm is looking for a replacement, officials
said. They also reassured board members that a mental health nurse is
available at the jail even off-shift and during weekends. "Recruitment
is not the same as hiring," Marion Damick, the Pittsburgh representative
of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, said in frustration. Board member Claire
Walker, former executive director of the Pittsburgh Child Guidance
Foundation, thanked Corizon officials for the report, saying the level of attention
and transparency was "so much better" than when the for-profit firm
first took over last fall. No mention was made at Thursday's meeting of the
suspension of five jail guards following an incident in which an employee
entered the jail with a personal handgun. Ms. Walker said personnel issues
are the province of jail management, not the oversight board.

Mar 15, 2014 triblive.com/news

Allegheny County restored the
security clearance of a union organizer who worked at the county jail,
allowing her to return to her former position, county spokeswoman Amie Downs
confirmed Tuesday. Sister Barbara Finch lost her county security clearance at
the jail in January, a move she interpreted as a firing. Finch was a lead
organizer among employees of Corizon Correctional Healthcare, a
Tennessee-based medical contractor that serves the jail. Corizon and the
United Steelworkers are expected to begin contract negotiations soon,
according to a joint statement from both organizations. In a prepared
statement, Corizon's interim chief operating officer, Carla Cesario, said the
company had no control over the removal of Finch's security clearance. “We
are moving forward and will remain focused on our mission of providing
quality care,” Cesario said.

Mar 2, 2014 post-gazette.com

Allegheny County Controller Chelsa
Wagner announced today that she plans to conduct an audit of the contract
between the county and Corizon Health Inc., which was hired last year to run
the infirmary at the Allegheny County Jail. Earlier this month, Ms. Wagner
sent a letter to the CEO of Tennessee-based Corizon, saying she had “grave
and serious concerns” about health care and working conditions at the jail.
In a statement from her office today, she said she remains concerned. “I
remain gravely concerned by the credible reports our office has received
regarding substandard care at the jail,” she said in a statement. “I’ve
raised these concerns publicly, including at the Jail Advisory Board and in
writing to Corizon. Yet, the responses to my questions have likewise been
substandard and certainly not what I would expect from an entity that
receives more than $11 million in taxpayer money annually.”

Corizon, which is a national
prison health care provider, signed a contract with the county last summer
that pays $11.5 million for the first year. Its management of health services
at the jail began Sept. 1. The audit will cover the period from Sept. 1
through today. “We have received the letter indicating the Controller wants
to conduct an audit," said Corizon spokeswoman Susan Morgenstern.
."It’s important to note that we are working in close partnership with
the county and jail leadership to fulfill our mission. Our focus remains on
supporting our staff who provide quality care to
patients in the jail every day.” Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald
said his office welcome's the audit. "We welcome audits of any
department that result in recommendations that add value, are measurable and
improve our county operations," county spokeswoman Amie Downs said in a
statement. "This contract just was entered into in September of 2013, so
it may be difficult to measure its compliance with such a short window being
available for review, but we look forward to the results."

Feb 15, 2014 triblive.com

Allegheny County Controller Chelsa
Wagner threatened to penalize the jail's new health care provider if it does
not improve its performance. Wagner said her office has received complaints
that Tennessee-based Corizon Health Inc. failed to distribute medication and
treat inmates with some mental health problems, according to a letter she
sent to Corizon CEO Woodrow A. Myers. Corizon started offering care Sept. 1,
but its “period of transition” has expired, Wagner wrote in the letter dated
Monday. “I regard the current situation as intolerable and outrageous, and I
fully expect necessary changes to be urgently implemented,” Wagner wrote. A
Corizon spokeswoman said the company plans to respond to Wagner's concerns in
writing. “We certainly share her focus on taking good care of patients at the
Allegheny County Jail,” spokeswoman Susan Morgenstern said. Wagner, who is on
the county's Jail Oversight Board, said the county could impose financial
penalties outlined in Corizon's contract. Wagner's office could withhold
payments to Corizon and audit its work at the jail, she said. Corizon's
five-year contract could cost the county more than $62.55 million. Wagner
expected a response soon and said waiting 60 or 90 days would be “stretching
it.” Corizon officials did not attend the board's Feb. 6 meeting. Allegheny
Common Pleas Judge Donna Jo McDaniel, head of the oversight board, met with
Corizon Tuesday. McDaniel did not return calls. Corizon employees at the jail
are to vote Friday on whether to unionize under a branch of the United Steelworkers.
Wagner said she supports the efforts of workers to unionize. Aaron Aupperlee
is a staff writer for Trib Total Media.

Feb 8, 2014 Pittsburg Post-Gazette

A nun who worked for five years as
a registered nurse at the Allegheny County Jail infirmary was fired last week
for spearheading unionization efforts, an organizer for the United
Steelworkers union said Monday. Sister Barbara Finch, a Sister of St. Joseph
of Baden, had her security clearances revoked and was dismissed from her job
Thursday after she expressed concerns about staffing,
safety issues and patient care during meetings at the jail, said Randa Ruge,
the union organizer. "It became clear that she was one of the leading
activists in the organizing drive," Ms. Ruge said, referring to ongoing
unionization efforts at the jail. Ms. Ruge described Sister Barbara as a
"sacrificial lamb" and said that the union is "concerned that
taxpayer dollars are being used for union-busting." The Steelworkers
union on Friday filed an unfair labor practice charge against Corizon Health
Inc., the Tennessee-based firm that manages county jail health services. The
charge, sent to the National Labor Relation Board, is that Corizon dismissed
her in retaliation for participating in union activities. "This is a
clear case of intimidation and union-busting at its worst," United
Steelworkers International president Leo W. Gerard said in a statement.
"Sister Barbara has been an outspoken advocate of change for these
courageous workers and their patients, and this kind of illegal and unjust
action, unfortunately, is par for the course with Corizon." "It is
our policy not to discuss personnel issues in the news media. I can confirm
that we abide by all labor laws; if there is a question to address with the
NLRB, we will do so," said Susan Morgenstern, a Corizon spokeswoman. An
Allegheny County spokeswoman also declined comment. Union members, jail
employees and other union advocates held a protest Downtown Monday, bringing
attention to Sister Barbara's complaint and making known their support for
the right of workers to unionize. Corizon took over management of Allegheny
County Jail health services in September, after signing a contract with
Allegheny County last summer for $11.4 million a year. Steelworkers
representatives have said that, since Corizon took over, they've received
reports of bad working conditions. In January,
the union filed a labor petition to unionize about 110 members of the
Allegheny County Jail medical staff. The National Labor Relations Board has
scheduled an election Feb. 14.

December 8, 2013 Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette

The company hired to improve
health care and cut costs at the Allegheny County Jail has struggled with one
of its basic functions -- distributing medicine -- due to difficulties
staffing the busy infirmary. Tennessee-based for-profit firm Corizon Health
Inc., hired to replace the nonprofit Allegheny Correctional Health Services,
would not discuss the problems last week, nor its
decision to slash physician staffing at the jail to roughly one-third of its
prior level. Emails between county jail staff and Corizon, though, document a
string of medication distribution problems that one jail watcher called
"terrifying." "I was just informed by the Captain on shift,
the majority of the jail has not received medication AT ALL," wrote
Deputy Warden Monica Long in an email to Corizon and jail staff on Nov. 17 at
1:03 p.m. "Staffing is at a crisis." The Post-Gazette obtained the
internal emails and other documents through a request to the county under the
right-to-know law. Asked about the emails on Thursday, following a meeting of
the county Jail Oversight Board, Lee Harrington, Corizon vice president of
operations, claimed no knowledge of any problems. "We're constantly
adjusting our services to make sure that we provide the services as
contracted," he said. He declined to detail the adjustments. Reading the
emails, frequent jail visitor Marion Damick, the Pittsburgh representative of
the Pennsylvania Prison Society, called the problems "abnormal. That
never happened under Allegheny [Correctional], never. "That's
terrifying, actually. There is absolutely no reason that they would ever miss
medication," she said, adding that such shortcomings can only increase
costs in the long run. She added that she is "not hearing bad news"
about Corizon from inmates to date. Corizon took over the jail infirmary
Sept. 1, following a lengthy process meant to pick the successor to Allegheny
Correctional. Allegheny Correctional drew a steady stream of lawsuits
stemming from inmate deaths and injuries, including some related to alleged
failures to give inmates the right medicines. The nonprofit, which ran the infirmary since 2001, also allowed annual costs
to creep up to around $12.5 million a year. Corizon agreed to take on the
2,500-inmate jail for $11.5 million the first year, with annual increases of
4.25 percent. Corizon said it would do a better job of staffing the
infirmary. In a pre-takeover email dated Aug. 16 explaining why some
Allegheny Correctional employees would soon lose their jobs, another Corizon
vice president of operations, Mary Silva, wrote that "I ... really feel
it is imperative to have adequate staffing on ALL shifts, not just day
shift." After Corizon's Sept. 1 takeover, though, staffing did not
stabilize. That led to disruptions to the daily "medication passes"
to the jail's 35 pods. An Oct. 10 email from Ms. Long to Mr. Harrington and
others asked for a "plan for successful implementation of medication
passes" -- the term for the nursing staff's several-times-daily
distribution to pods of medicines in packets stamped with the names of the
receiving inmates. On Oct. 21, Warden Orlando Harper wrote to Mr. Harrington
and others: "We are continuing to experience issues pertaining to the
following: 1. Staffing, 2. Medication distribution." An email from Ms.
Long complained that on Oct. 18 and 19, medication on Level 3 was passed out
"after 11:00 p.m.," and on Oct. 20,
"2 pods did not receive medication at all." She added that two
pregnant inmates were "left in intake 24 hours" because Corizon
nurses "did not know what to do" with them. An inmate on oxygen who
"was supposed to be processed immediately" was left in the intake
area for two shifts, she wrote. On Nov. 16, a jail sergeant wrote that
"Level 7 hasn't received Medication" by almost 2 p.m. "This is
on going [sic] problem." That day the person charged with solving the
problem, longtime jail nursing director Kim Mike-Wilson, quit with no notice,
according to the emails. The next day, Ms. Long characterized the situation
as "a crisis." In a response email, Corizon assistant health
service administrator Michael Barfield blamed the day's crisis on Ms.
Mike-Wilson's departure and a nurse's mid-shift departure due to illness. The
county declined to provide a list of Corizon staff inside the jail,
indicating in a response to a right-to-know request that such information
"is not directly related, or even relevant to" a contractor's
performance of a governmental function. A Nov. 20 meeting of jail and Corizon
officials on medication passes and other issues failed to iron out the
problems. Ms. Long wrote to Mr. Harrington two days later saying she
"Just received another call that [pod] 5E has not received medications
thus far." Reached by phone Friday, Mr. Harper declined to detail his
staff's interactions with Corizon. "Right now we're doing everything
possible to make sure that our inmates receive the proper medical care,"
he said. In an email response to questions Friday, county manager William D.
McKain wrote that Corizon's leadership has been responsive to concerns. He
added that when transitioning from Allegheny Correctional to Corizon,
"we expected that there will be a period of time in which there are
problems and issues to be addressed.." There
are often disruptions when a jail changes its medical provider, said Mark
Stern, former medical director at the Washington Department of Corrections,
now an assistant affiliate professor at the University of Washington School
of Public Health. "It's not acceptable," said Dr. Stern, who worked
briefly around 2000 for a company that merged into 35-year-old Corizon.
"This is not [Corizon's] first rodeo. These problems are predictable and
preventable." Failing to deliver necessary medicines regularly would be
"a serious violation of the constitutional right of inmates," he
said. "There are some medications where a deviation of a few hours or
even a day or so may not make a difference. There are other medications were
the timing is much more critical. "If we're treating tuberculosis and we
don't treat it well in prison, then when they get out in the community,
they're going to spread it." Mr. Barfield told the Jail Oversight Board
Thursday that Corizon had "ramped up the clinic visits." He said
the key was hiring more nurse practitioners. Jail medical director Michael
Patterson highlighted for the board his focus on detecting and treating
diabetes. Dr. Patterson appears to be the lone remaining full-time physician
in the jail under Corizon. The firm's contract calls for one additional
part-time physician, and former jail medical employees who quit recently said
that Eugene Youngue is filling that role. Both Dr. Patterson and Dr. Youngue
served the jail full time under Allegheny Correctional, along with physicians
Lucille Aiken, Miguel Salomon and part-timer Morris Harper. Dr. Aiken in
September filed a state Human Relations Commission complaint against the
county and Corizon, claiming that she was sent packing before the firm's
takeover as retaliation for her efforts to ensure quality care for inmates,
and because of her gender and status as an immigrant from Italy. Allegheny
Correctional also employed three psychiatrists and one psychologist.
Corizon's contract requires that it provide one full-time psychiatrist and a
part-time psychologist. Mr. Harrington would not provide a raw number of
physicians working in the jail following the board meeting Thursday, and on
Friday failed to respond to an email and hung up when reached on his cell
phone. "We have a full complement of doctors," he said Thursday.
"That's what we are contracted to provide."

December 8, 2013 Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette

The company hired to improve
health care and cut costs at the Allegheny County Jail has struggled with one
of its basic functions -- distributing medicine -- due to difficulties
staffing the busy infirmary. Tennessee-based for-profit firm Corizon Health
Inc., hired to replace the nonprofit Allegheny Correctional Health Services, would
not discuss the problems last week, nor its decision
to slash physician staffing at the jail to roughly one-third of its prior
level. Emails between county jail staff and Corizon, though, document a
string of medication distribution problems that one jail watcher called
"terrifying." "I was just informed by the Captain on shift,
the majority of the jail has not received medication AT ALL," wrote
Deputy Warden Monica Long in an email to Corizon and jail staff on Nov. 17 at
1:03 p.m. "Staffing is at a crisis." The Post-Gazette obtained the
internal emails and other documents through a request to the county under the
right-to-know law. Asked about the emails on Thursday, following a meeting of
the county Jail Oversight Board, Lee Harrington, Corizon vice president of
operations, claimed no knowledge of any problems. "We're constantly
adjusting our services to make sure that we provide the services as
contracted," he said. He declined to detail the adjustments. Reading the
emails, frequent jail visitor Marion Damick, the Pittsburgh representative of
the Pennsylvania Prison Society, called the problems "abnormal. That
never happened under Allegheny [Correctional], never. "That's
terrifying, actually. There is absolutely no reason that they would ever miss
medication," she said, adding that such shortcomings can only increase
costs in the long run. She added that she is "not hearing bad news"
about Corizon from inmates to date. Corizon took over the jail infirmary
Sept. 1, following a lengthy process meant to pick the successor to Allegheny
Correctional. Allegheny Correctional drew a steady stream of lawsuits
stemming from inmate deaths and injuries, including some related to alleged
failures to give inmates the right medicines. The nonprofit, which ran the infirmary since 2001, also allowed annual
costs to creep up to around $12.5 million a year. Corizon agreed to take on
the 2,500-inmate jail for $11.5 million the first year, with annual increases
of 4.25 percent. Corizon said it would do a better job of staffing the
infirmary. In a pre-takeover email dated Aug. 16 explaining why some
Allegheny Correctional employees would soon lose their jobs, another Corizon
vice president of operations, Mary Silva, wrote that "I ... really feel
it is imperative to have adequate staffing on ALL shifts, not just day
shift." After Corizon's Sept. 1 takeover, though, staffing did not
stabilize. That led to disruptions to the daily "medication passes"
to the jail's 35 pods. An Oct. 10 email from Ms. Long to Mr. Harrington and
others asked for a "plan for successful implementation of medication
passes" -- the term for the nursing staff's several-times-daily
distribution to pods of medicines in packets stamped with the names of the
receiving inmates. On Oct. 21, Warden Orlando Harper wrote to Mr. Harrington
and others: "We are continuing to experience issues pertaining to the
following: 1. Staffing, 2. Medication distribution." An email from Ms.
Long complained that on Oct. 18 and 19, medication on Level 3 was passed out "after
11:00 p.m.," and on Oct. 20, "2 pods did
not receive medication at all." She added that two pregnant inmates were
"left in intake 24 hours" because Corizon nurses "did not know
what to do" with them. An inmate on oxygen who "was supposed to be
processed immediately" was left in the intake area for two shifts, she
wrote. On Nov. 16, a jail sergeant wrote that "Level 7 hasn't received
Medication" by almost 2 p.m. "This is on going [sic] problem."
That day the person charged with solving the problem, longtime jail nursing
director Kim Mike-Wilson, quit with no notice, according to the emails. The
next day, Ms. Long characterized the situation as "a crisis." In a
response email, Corizon assistant health service administrator Michael
Barfield blamed the day's crisis on Ms. Mike-Wilson's departure and a nurse's
mid-shift departure due to illness. The county declined to provide a list of
Corizon staff inside the jail, indicating in a response to a right-to-know
request that such information "is not directly related, or even relevant
to" a contractor's performance of a governmental function. A Nov. 20
meeting of jail and Corizon officials on medication passes and other issues
failed to iron out the problems. Ms. Long wrote to Mr. Harrington two days
later saying she "Just received another call that [pod] 5E has not
received medications thus far." Reached by phone Friday, Mr. Harper
declined to detail his staff's interactions with Corizon. "Right now
we're doing everything possible to make sure that our inmates receive the
proper medical care," he said. In an email response to questions Friday,
county manager William D. McKain wrote that Corizon's leadership has been
responsive to concerns. He added that when transitioning from Allegheny
Correctional to Corizon, "we expected that there will be a period of
time in which there are problems and issues to be addressed.."
There are often disruptions when a jail changes its medical provider, said
Mark Stern, former medical director at the Washington Department of
Corrections, now an assistant affiliate professor at the University of
Washington School of Public Health. "It's not acceptable," said Dr.
Stern, who worked briefly around 2000 for a company that merged into
35-year-old Corizon. "This is not [Corizon's] first rodeo. These problems
are predictable and preventable." Failing to deliver necessary medicines
regularly would be "a serious violation of the constitutional right of
inmates," he said. "There are some medications where a deviation of
a few hours or even a day or so may not make a difference. There are other
medications were the timing is much more critical. "If we're treating
tuberculosis and we don't treat it well in prison, then when they get out in
the community, they're going to spread it." Mr. Barfield told the Jail
Oversight Board Thursday that Corizon had "ramped up the clinic
visits." He said the key was hiring more nurse practitioners. Jail
medical director Michael Patterson highlighted for the board his focus on
detecting and treating diabetes. Dr. Patterson appears to be the lone
remaining full-time physician in the jail under Corizon. The firm's contract
calls for one additional part-time physician, and former jail medical
employees who quit recently said that Eugene Youngue is filling that role.
Both Dr. Patterson and Dr. Youngue served the jail full time under Allegheny
Correctional, along with physicians Lucille Aiken, Miguel Salomon and
part-timer Morris Harper. Dr. Aiken in September filed a state Human
Relations Commission complaint against the county and Corizon, claiming that
she was sent packing before the firm's takeover as retaliation for her
efforts to ensure quality care for inmates, and because of her gender and
status as an immigrant from Italy. Allegheny Correctional also employed three
psychiatrists and one psychologist. Corizon's contract requires that it
provide one full-time psychiatrist and a part-time psychologist. Mr.
Harrington would not provide a raw number of physicians working in the jail
following the board meeting Thursday, and on Friday failed to respond to an
email and hung up when reached on his cell phone. "We have a full
complement of doctors," he said Thursday. "That's what we are
contracted to provide."

January
24, 2003On Oct. 21, 1996, 33-year-old Charles
Fine, a heroin addict From Monongahela, became the first inmate to kill
himself in what was then the new Allegheny County Jail.He rigged a makeshift noose out of his
shoelaces and hung himself from a bunk in his cell.Now, seven years later, the medical company
that used to screen inmates for suicide risk at the jail is on trial in U.S.
District Court, defending itself against a negligence claim.Fine's stepmother, Barbara Mayfield,
represented by local attorney Vincent Coppola, says employees of Correctional
Medical Services Inc. of Missouri should have known Fine was going to kill
himself.Correctional Medical, the
country's largest health-care provider for jails, pulled out of the Allegheny
County Jail in 2000, but the move had nothing to do with the lawsuit.Fine, who worked for a time as a welder,
was jailed on Oct. 20, 1996, pending trial for retail theft and simple
assault. Earlier that year he had also been jailed on drug possession charges
and later released.In both instances,
according to the complaint, a nurse filled out a 10-question form used to
determine if an inmate might be a suicide risk. Coppola said his answers to
questions should have shown the medical staff fine was suffering from heroin
withdrawal and that he was depressed and in "emotional distress."Coppola has argued that the staff should
have realized Fine might kill himself and placed him in the Mental Health
Unit rather than in the general jail population. He said the staff should
also have removed his shoelaces. (Post-Gazette.com)

, Philadelphia,
PennsylvaniaDecember
14, 2012 Philly.com
AN ARM of the food-services giant Aramark and a local minority-owned business
will pay the city a total of $400,000 to settle a suit that accused the
companies of fudging their numbers to skirt minority-participation
requirements in a Philadelphia prison system contract, the city announced
Thursday. "They really were denying opportunities for legitimate
minority companies that wanted to work," said city Inspector General Amy
Kurland, whose office oversaw the investigation. Aramark Correctional
Services provides three meals a day to prisoners, but it is required to
subcontract out 20 percent to 25 percent of the work to businesses owned by
minorities, women or disabled persons. The suit alleged that Aramark and
Strother Enterprises, a minority-business group in Philadelphia, employed a
circular payment scheme to overstate how much of the business Strother was
getting. Neither company admitted fault in the settlement, which will cost
Aramark $352,000 and Strother $48,000. Both will also have to improve their
compliance codes. Aramark described the problem as a "reporting
discrepancy. "We have corrected the issue and
implemented a comprehensive compliance program," the company said in a
statement. Strother did not return a request for comment. Kurland said that
schemes like this one are a "huge problem." "It's very
common," she said. "We've approached companies that have done this
and [they] said, 'Well, isn't this the way things are done in Philadelphia?'

August 30, 2012 Northwest Arkansas Business Journal
Former University of Central Arkansas president Allen Meadors is facing a
misdemeanor charge stemming from a deal with food vendor Aramark. The office
of Faulkner County Prosecutor Cody Hiland filed the charge on Wednesday, nearly a year after the UCA board began an
investigation of Meadors. Hiland was out of the office Thursday morning and
unavailable for comment. Meadors and board Chairman Scott Roussel apologized
last year for not revealing that Aramark offered $700,000 for renovating the
UCA president's home if its contract with the school was renewed. Several
trustees have they didn't know the Aramark offer was tied to the renewal of
its contract with UCA. The trustees said they thought the $700,000 was a gift.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Wednesday that Meadors' charge was
solicitation of tampering with a public record, which "carries a
punishment of up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine." Meadors
"is accused of urging a vice president to destroy a letter that said the
offer would be in exchange for renewing Aramark's contract," the
newspaper said.

April
27, 2012 Log Cabin
University of Central Arkansas Faculty Senate members are calling for a
trustee’s resignation. The group voted Thursday on a resolution requesting
Scott Roussel, a real estate business man of Searcy appointed to the board
for a second term in 2008 by Gov. Mike Beebe, to leave his post. The action
follows the board’s approval of a new deal with Aramark, one that would “wipe
clean” $6.7 million in unamortized funds and interest. Roussel voted to
approve the contract along with other trustees as it was presented, though
governing groups on campus said they believed the trustee should recuse.
Thursday’s resolution states that Roussel “was cognizant of the conditions
described by Aramark in the acceptance of $700,000 in return for a
seven-year, no bid contract for food services on the UCA campus...” It
further explains that Roussel “would or should have been aware” of potential
damage to the university’s reputation when he announced the large “gift” from
the university’s food vendor, and did not disclose, by his account without
purpose, that the pledge was contingent upon the renewal of the company’s
contract. The money would have furthered renovations under way at the UCA
president’s home that was occupied by former president Allen Meadors, who
resigned last September after trustees learned of the stipulation. UCA
conducted its own interviews shortly after the discovery, but then turned the
investigation into possible improprieties by university staff over to
Arkansas State Police. State police gave a “lengthy” case file to Twentieth
Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland earlier this month. Hiland
said Friday that his office is still reviewing the file to determine if a
criminal act has been committed.

September
7, 2011 Arkansas Times
"There's right and there's wrong and there's UCA." I don't even
know what that means. I doubt that the Conway insider who uttered it to me
Friday afternoon does either. I use it, though, because it conveys the
relevant utter frustration. A few years ago the University of Central
Arkansas was the hottest college in the state. It was located in a booming
suburban college town. It had a politically astute president. Enrollment was
skyrocketing. Television advertising was Landersesque. Then that politically
astute president, Lu Hardin, got caught cutting ethical corners to gin up
some bonus money for himself to pay gambling debts.
He will be going to prison any day now, surely. The UCA Board of Trustees,
looking around for the anti-Lu, found its man in Dr. Allen Meadors, a campus
graduate with experience as a small-college president and a meek manner. Not
long ago I made a crack about Hardin's ethical wasteland in the presence of a
leading UCA staff member. It angered her. She explained that she loved the
school and that it was steadily righting itself and, essentially, that a
smart-aleck press commentator ought to watch his mouth. But now this: Meadors
was revealed this week to have misrepresented to the UCA board that the
campus food vendor, a company called Aramark, was donating $700,000 to fix up
the president's official home across the street from the campus. The board,
initially as blindly obeisant to administrative happy talk as with Hardin
before, said sure, yes, without delay, we accept this gift for this most
urgent academic need and we authorize preliminary architectural designs and
cost estimates. Then came that pesky reporter for
the statewide daily, famous for bedeviling Hardin, and still wielding the
Freedom of Information law like a switchblade. She asked board members if
they had known a little detail: Aramark actually would donate the money from
one hand only if it was guaranteed that it would reel more money from UCA
into the other hand by getting its food service contract renewed without
competitive bidding for a period at least long enough for a guaranteed
realization of enough profit to get back the gift. Why, no, we didn't know
that, said some of these board members, and, by golly, we are just a little
bit ticked. They called themselves to a special meeting. This was not
charity, but amortizing. It was a food service vendor seeking to escape a new
round of competitive bidding by going into the home improvement lending
business on the side. It was an advance on marked-up grub the kids would eat
later in their hostage environment. I'm advised that this kind of arrangement
is not uncommon. But it ought to be. And if it is common, why conspicuously
neglect to mention it? Meadors, going all-in for damage control, told the
board in this second special meeting that he had erred and that he would
recommend that the school not accept the money as offered. He recommended
that the school open the food service contract for bidding. The board
withdrew its previous approval for a housing allowance by which Meadors and
his wife could rent suitable quarters elsewhere until the presidential home
was renovated. Meadors' wife, a stronger personality, has been spending quite
a bit of time with family in North Carolina. Just 24 hours later, on Friday
afternoon, the board met in special session again, this time by phone. Then
the board reconvened in public and bought out Meadors' contract. The board
could have restored Meadors' authority to live temporarily off campus. But
that might simply have kept matters festering — a la Hardin — and nobody
wanted to go through that again. Meadors may be a bit of a victim, just as
UCA. He clearly erred by not revealing the full nature of the arrangement
with the food vendor. But it is entirely possible that he considered such
deals commonplace. He may have felt some pressure close to home about
inadequate living arrangements, the short-term solution to which got
sacrificed in this fast-roiling controversy. So now UCA will start trying
again to right the ship.

September
1, 2011 AP
A $700,000 gift from Aramark to the University of Central Arkansas came with
a condition that Aramark's food service contract with the university be
renewed. At least five members of UCA's Board of Trustees say they did not
know about the condition. A letter from Aramark district manager to UCA vice
president Diane Newton calls the money an unrestricted grant contingent upon
a seven year extension of Aramark's food service contract. UCA President
Allen Meadors told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that he takes responsibility
for the trustees not knowing the terms of the gift. Meadors says such
conditions are not unusual. Trustee Rush Harding III told the Log Cabin
Democrat agreed the transaction is common — but said trustees should have
been informed.

January
29, 2010 Herald-LeaderState Auditor Crit Luallen said Thursday she would do an audit of the
private company that has a nearly $12 million annual contract to serve food
at the state's 13 prisons. The announcement came a day after a House
committee voted to cancel a contract with Aramark Correctional Services,
which served food at Northpoint Training Center at the time of a costly riot
there. Also Wednesday, the state released its full investigative report on
the Aug. 21 riot, which went into more detail about problems with food at the
Mercer County prison. House Speaker Greg Stumbo and Rep. John Tilley,
chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Thursday that they thought
Luallen should look into Aramark's performance under the contract. "I do
think it's appropriate to ask the state auditor in some fashion to audit the
situation," Tilley said Thursday. Said Luallen: "While there has
not been a formal request yet, there have been enough questions raised by
legislators that we will begin to make plans to do an audit of the
contract." Members of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted
6-4 to cancel Aramark's contract because of concerns about the food. Many on
the committee questioned whether Aramark was skimping on ingredients to serve
more people cheaply. "Aramark stands behind the quality of service we
provide, which has won the accolades of our clients and the national
accreditation agencies who monitor the quality of food service," an
Aramark spokeswoman said Wednesday. An audit conducted of Aramark's
performance for the Florida prison system in 2007 showed the number of
inmates eating meals declined after Aramark took over the food service. But
the company was paid based on the number of inmates, not on the number of
meals served. Aramark also substituted less costly products such as ground
turkey for beef, the audit said. The audit recommended that Florida rebid the
food service or take it over. But Aramark terminated the contract near the
end of 2008, according to published reports. Gov. Steve Beshear praised
prison officials' handling of the riot. He said he was "confounded"
with the legislature's "continued fixation with the menus for convicted
criminals when we're desperately trying to avoid cutting teachers and state
troopers. ... We have more than 10 percent unemployment and Kentucky families
are struggling to put food on the table, and I am loath to consider millions
more dollars for criminals who wish they could go to Wendy's instead."
But Tilley and Stumbo — both Democrats — defended the House's investigation
into the riot, which damaged six buildings and caused a fiery melee.
"The truth is, we had a riot on our hands that is probably going to cost
the taxpayers $10 million," Stumbo said, referring to money Beshear has
requested to rebuild the prison outside of Danville. "And we need to
find out why the hell we had it." Meanwhile, there are still questions
about why key parts of the original report on the riot were not immediately
released in November. It was only after the House Judiciary Committee
repeatedly asked to see the report that the Department of Corrections agreed
to release a redacted version of the full report at Wednesday's House
Judiciary Committee meeting. The report released Wednesday showed that
Northpoint Warden Steve Haney did not want to implement restrictions that
were a primary cause of the riot, but he was overruled by Deputy Commissioner
of Adult Institutions Al Parke and Director of Operations James Erwin. The
report said the handling of restrictions was "haphazard and poorly
planned." The report also revealed other problems before, during and
after the riot, including non-existent radio communications among agencies, a
lack of documentation, failed video cameras and a considerable delay in the
formal investigation. The report said there was confusion over whether
Kentucky State Police or Justice Cabinet investigators should handle the
post-riot investigation. Those details were not released in a summary Nov.
20. Beshear defended his administration Thursday, saying he was confident the
riot was handled correctly. "I have full confidence in the Secretary of
the Justice Cabinet J. Michael Brown and his staff and how they handled the
Northpoint riot and its subsequent investigation," Beshear said. Kerri
Richardson, a spokeswoman for Beshear, said Beshear's office never saw the
original report, but had seen the report summary. Beshear's staff asked for
more explanation in the summary report but did not ask for anything to be
taken out, she said. Jennifer Brislin, a spokeswoman for the Department of
Justice, said there was no attempt on the part of the Justice Cabinet or the
Department of Corrections to hide or minimize some of the problems on the day
of the riot. Department of Corrections Commissioner LaDonna Thompson left out
some of those problems in her Nov. 20 summary because she thought some of
those details would compromise security at the prison, Brislin said. "During
her review, she exempted information that she felt would be a security risk
to staff and inmates, and that included information regarding how command
decisions were made," Brislin said. House Bill 33 — the bill that would
cancel the Aramark contract — now heads to the House Appropriations and
Revenue Committee. If the state cancels the contract, it could add as much as
$5.4 million a year to the state's cost of feeding inmates, according to the
Department of Corrections.

January
28, 2010 Herald-Leader
The warden at Northpoint Training Center did not want to implement the prison
yard restrictions that contributed to an August riot that heavily damaged
much of the facility, but he was overruled by Department of Corrections
officials, according to an investigative report released Wednesday. The
investigation also revealed numerous other problems at Northpoint that
occurred before, during and after the riot, including inmate anger about food
on the day of the riot and a crucial delay in the formal investigation of how
the fiery melee occurred. After reviewing the report, the House Judiciary
Committee voted 9-4 to approve a bill that would cancel the state's $12
million annual contract with Aramark Correctional Services to provide meals
at 13 prisons. The investigative report showed that anger over food
contributed to the Aug. 21 riot at the Mercer County prison. The report,
which was withheld from the public by state officials until Wednesday, puts
more emphasis on food as a contributing cause of the riot than the state
Corrections Department's "review" of the investigative report,
which was released Nov. 20. The review concluded that the main cause of the
riot was inmate anger about a lockdown and other restrictions imposed after a
fight at the prison. However, the latest report shows that virtually every
inmate and employee interviewed by investigators said that Aramark food and
its prices at the canteen were among the reasons for the riot. The report
lists those issues as the third and fourth factors, respectively, that
contributed to the riot. "Apparently, there had been complaints for
years about the quality of the food, the portion sizes and the continual
shortage and substitutions for scheduled menu items," the report states.
"Sanitation of the kitchen was also a source of complaints," says
the report. Inmates set fires that destroyed six buildings, including those
containing the kitchen, canteen, visitation center, medical services,
sanitation department and a multipurpose area. Several dorms were heavily damaged,
and eight guards and eight inmates were injured. 'Haphazard' action --
According to the report, the riot began 15 minutes after details were posted
about new movement restrictions for prisoners in the yard. The restrictions
came after an Aug. 18 fight over canteen items that caused prison officials
to institute a lockdown. The investigation found that Northpoint Warden Steve
Haney wanted to return the prison yard to normal operations as he typically
did after a lockdown, but he was overruled by Al Parke, deputy commissioner
of adult institutions and James Erwin, director of operations. "The
implementation of the controlled movement policy at NTC was haphazard and
poorly planned at best," says the report. The report also says the
warden never got word that inmates had dumped food from their trays on the
floor at breakfast and at lunch on the day of the riot. Aramark officials
e-mailed details of the incident to a deputy warden at Northpoint, but the
information apparently was not passed along, the report said. During the
riot, "radio communications between all agencies involved was virtually
non-existent, causing chaos and a general feeling of disconnect with the
various agencies involved," according to the report. After the riot,
there was a "gross lack of coordination of submitting reports,"
evidence was compromised because most video cameras failed the evening of the
riot, and there was a considerable delay in the formal investigation, the
report said. Kentucky State Police immediately tried to begin an
investigation to see which inmates were involved in the riot but was advised
by the corrections department's operations director that the investigation
would be conducted internally. Several days later, the report said, two staff
members from the Justice Cabinet determined that state police should conduct
the investigation. "The criminal investigations should have started
immediately to preserve evidence, testimony and critical information,"
the report says. "After a few days, staff thoughts and observations
became diluted."

July
7, 2010 Evanston-Review
An on-site food services worker is charging that her employers, Evanston
Hospital and Aramark Services, allowed co-workers to repeatedly harass and
discriminate her despite her pleas to management for help. In a lawsuit filed
Tuesday, Yaffa Washington, a member of a Hebrew Israelite sect who was born
in Israel, said she was hired by Evanston Hospital in 2004 and soon
thereafter began working for Aramark Services, on location at the hospital,
2650 Ridge Ave. Washington, an African-American, charges in her lawsuit that
she was subjected to offensive racist and and anti-Semitic slurs, including
references to her as the “Jew Girl,” soon after after she began working for
Aramark. The lawsuit alleges that soon after informing Aramark officials that
she was contemplating filing an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
charge if the harassment didn't stop – in what her lawsuit describes as
“unlawful retaliation against her for engaging in legally protected activity”
– Washington was fired. Aramark could not be reached for comment Wednesday
afternoon. A spokeswoman for the hospital said Wednesday that the hospital
had not been served notice of such a lawsuit and so could not comment.

March
6, 2010 Philadelphia Enquirer
Saying it is owed $7.3 million, Aramark Corp., the Philadelphia food-services
provider, has sued a New Jersey operator of correctional facilities. In the
suit, Aramark contends Community Education Centers Inc., of West Caldwell,
N.J., has been in default on bills since at least June 2008. Locally, Aramark
services Community Education Centers facilities in
Philadelphia, Delaware County, Reading, and Trenton. Aramark's lawsuit, filed
Feb. 18 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, said Community Education
Centers was overdue on $5.2 million of the total, and it requested that a
judgment, including interest, costs, and attorney's fees, be entered in its
favor. In an e-mailed statement yesterday, Community Education Centers said
it "does not comment on pending litigation except to say that the two
companies are in negotiations regarding the matter." Community Education
Centers is one of a number of companies considered likely to bid on a prison
privatization contract in Camden County. Last year, a unit of the company
bought options on land in Camden as a potential site for a new prison, but
the site has been ruled out by county freeholders because of neighborhood
protests. The privately held company, which operates in 19 states, employs
4,500 and services nearly 30,000 individuals, did not comment specifically on
the proposed privatization of Camden County's prison system. Among Community
Education Centers' investors is Philadelphia private-equity firm LLR
Partners. The firm's investment fund, LLR Equity Partners II L.P., in 2007
bought $53 million worth of preferred stock, according to a regulatory
filing. LLR cofounder Seth Lehr, who is on Community Education Centers' board
of directors, said the firm does not comment on companies in its portfolio.

January
29, 2010 Herald-LeaderState Auditor Crit Luallen said Thursday she would do an audit of the
private company that has a nearly $12 million annual contract to serve food
at the state's 13 prisons. The announcement came a day after a House
committee voted to cancel a contract with Aramark Correctional Services,
which served food at Northpoint Training Center at the time of a costly riot
there. Also Wednesday, the state released its full investigative report on
the Aug. 21 riot, which went into more detail about problems with food at the
Mercer County prison. House Speaker Greg Stumbo and Rep. John Tilley,
chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Thursday that they thought
Luallen should look into Aramark's performance under the contract. "I do
think it's appropriate to ask the state auditor in some fashion to audit the
situation," Tilley said Thursday. Said Luallen: "While there has
not been a formal request yet, there have been enough questions raised by
legislators that we will begin to make plans to do an audit of the
contract." Members of the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted
6-4 to cancel Aramark's contract because of concerns about the food. Many on
the committee questioned whether Aramark was skimping on ingredients to serve
more people cheaply. "Aramark stands behind the quality of service we
provide, which has won the accolades of our clients and the national
accreditation agencies who monitor the quality of food service," an
Aramark spokeswoman said Wednesday. An audit conducted of Aramark's
performance for the Florida prison system in 2007 showed the number of
inmates eating meals declined after Aramark took over the food service. But
the company was paid based on the number of inmates, not on the number of
meals served. Aramark also substituted less costly products such as ground
turkey for beef, the audit said. The audit recommended that Florida rebid the
food service or take it over. But Aramark terminated the contract near the
end of 2008, according to published reports. Gov. Steve Beshear praised
prison officials' handling of the riot. He said he was "confounded"
with the legislature's "continued fixation with the menus for convicted
criminals when we're desperately trying to avoid cutting teachers and state
troopers. ... We have more than 10 percent unemployment and Kentucky families
are struggling to put food on the table, and I am loath to consider millions
more dollars for criminals who wish they could go to Wendy's instead."
But Tilley and Stumbo — both Democrats — defended the House's investigation
into the riot, which damaged six buildings and caused a fiery melee.
"The truth is, we had a riot on our hands that is probably going to cost
the taxpayers $10 million," Stumbo said, referring to money Beshear has
requested to rebuild the prison outside of Danville. "And we need to
find out why the hell we had it." Meanwhile, there are still questions
about why key parts of the original report on the riot were not immediately
released in November. It was only after the House Judiciary Committee
repeatedly asked to see the report that the Department of Corrections agreed
to release a redacted version of the full report at Wednesday's House
Judiciary Committee meeting. The report released Wednesday showed that
Northpoint Warden Steve Haney did not want to implement restrictions that
were a primary cause of the riot, but he was overruled by Deputy Commissioner
of Adult Institutions Al Parke and Director of Operations James Erwin. The
report said the handling of restrictions was "haphazard and poorly
planned." The report also revealed other problems before, during and
after the riot, including non-existent radio communications among agencies, a
lack of documentation, failed video cameras and a considerable delay in the
formal investigation. The report said there was confusion over whether
Kentucky State Police or Justice Cabinet investigators should handle the
post-riot investigation. Those details were not released in a summary Nov.
20. Beshear defended his administration Thursday, saying he was confident the
riot was handled correctly. "I have full confidence in the Secretary of
the Justice Cabinet J. Michael Brown and his staff and how they handled the
Northpoint riot and its subsequent investigation," Beshear said. Kerri
Richardson, a spokeswoman for Beshear, said Beshear's office never saw the
original report, but had seen the report summary. Beshear's staff asked for
more explanation in the summary report but did not ask for anything to be
taken out, she said. Jennifer Brislin, a spokeswoman for the Department of
Justice, said there was no attempt on the part of the Justice Cabinet or the
Department of Corrections to hide or minimize some of the problems on the day
of the riot. Department of Corrections Commissioner LaDonna Thompson left out
some of those problems in her Nov. 20 summary because she thought some of
those details would compromise security at the prison, Brislin said.
"During her review, she exempted information that she felt would be a
security risk to staff and inmates, and that included information regarding
how command decisions were made," Brislin said. House Bill 33 — the bill
that would cancel the Aramark contract — now heads to the House
Appropriations and Revenue Committee. If the state cancels the contract, it
could add as much as $5.4 million a year to the state's cost of feeding
inmates, according to the Department of Corrections.

January
28, 2010 Herald-Leader
The warden at Northpoint Training Center did not want to implement the prison
yard restrictions that contributed to an August riot that heavily damaged
much of the facility, but he was overruled by Department of Corrections
officials, according to an investigative report released Wednesday. The
investigation also revealed numerous other problems at Northpoint that occurred
before, during and after the riot, including inmate anger about food on the
day of the riot and a crucial delay in the formal investigation of how the
fiery melee occurred. After reviewing the report, the House Judiciary
Committee voted 9-4 to approve a bill that would cancel the state's $12
million annual contract with Aramark Correctional Services to provide meals
at 13 prisons. The investigative report showed that anger over food
contributed to the Aug. 21 riot at the Mercer County prison. The report,
which was withheld from the public by state officials until Wednesday, puts
more emphasis on food as a contributing cause of the riot than the state
Corrections Department's "review" of the investigative report,
which was released Nov. 20. The review concluded that the main cause of the
riot was inmate anger about a lockdown and other restrictions imposed after a
fight at the prison. However, the latest report shows that virtually every
inmate and employee interviewed by investigators said that Aramark food and
its prices at the canteen were among the reasons for the riot. The report
lists those issues as the third and fourth factors, respectively, that
contributed to the riot. "Apparently, there had been complaints for
years about the quality of the food, the portion sizes and the continual
shortage and substitutions for scheduled menu items," the report states.
"Sanitation of the kitchen was also a source of complaints," says
the report. Inmates set fires that destroyed six buildings, including those
containing the kitchen, canteen, visitation center, medical services,
sanitation department and a multipurpose area. Several dorms were heavily
damaged, and eight guards and eight inmates were injured. 'Haphazard' action
-- According to the report, the riot began 15 minutes after details were
posted about new movement restrictions for prisoners in the yard. The
restrictions came after an Aug. 18 fight over canteen items that caused
prison officials to institute a lockdown. The investigation found that Northpoint
Warden Steve Haney wanted to return the prison yard to normal operations as
he typically did after a lockdown, but he was overruled by Al Parke, deputy
commissioner of adult institutions and James Erwin, director of operations.
"The implementation of the controlled movement policy at NTC was
haphazard and poorly planned at best," says the report. The report also
says the warden never got word that inmates had dumped food from their trays
on the floor at breakfast and at lunch on the day of the riot. Aramark
officials e-mailed details of the incident to a deputy warden at Northpoint,
but the information apparently was not passed along, the report said. During
the riot, "radio communications between all agencies involved was
virtually non-existent, causing chaos and a general feeling of disconnect
with the various agencies involved," according to the report. After the
riot, there was a "gross lack of coordination of submitting
reports," evidence was compromised because most video cameras failed the
evening of the riot, and there was a considerable delay in the formal
investigation, the report said. Kentucky State Police immediately tried to
begin an investigation to see which inmates were involved in the riot but was
advised by the corrections department's operations director that the
investigation would be conducted internally. Several days later, the report
said, two staff members from the Justice Cabinet determined that state police
should conduct the investigation. "The criminal investigations should have
started immediately to preserve evidence, testimony and critical
information," the report says. "After a few days, staff thoughts
and observations became diluted."

December
3, 2008 Star-LedgerThe family of a young girl paralyzed in a drunk-driving accident nine
years ago received a $25 million settlement from Aramark Corp., the Giants
Stadium beer vendor whose employees continued to serve the intoxicated fan
who caused the crash. The settlement with the family of Antonia Verni, who is
now 11, took place last year but was not disclosed until today, when a state
appeals court ruled that sealed documents in the case must be made public.
Antonia, a quadriplegic who requires a ventilator to breathe, received $23.5
million in the settlement, said the family's lawyer, David A. Mazie of
Roseland. Her mother, Fazila Verni, received $1.5 million for injuries she
suffered in the crash.

February
24, 2008 Naperville Sun
A company hoping to win another contract at the DuPage County Jail has
donated thousands of dollars to elected county officials. Aramark, a
Philadelphia-based company that has provided the jail's food service for 21
years, has poured $14,770 into campaign coffers of State's Attorney Joe
Birkett, Sheriff John Zaruba, County Board Chairman Bob Schillerstrom and
others since 1999, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections. County
Board members Brien Sheahan, Debra Olson and Mike McMahon have received
several hundred dollars each. In a bidding process fraught with ambiguity and
conflict, Aramark has been fighting for more than a year to continue serving
food to jail inmates. When the bid was redone for the third time in December,
the company submitted a $949,616 bid that was $6,000 lower than that of its
competitor, Minnesota-based A'viands. But after the state's attorney's office
said Aramark submitted a menu that didn't meet requirements, officials
recommended the bid be awarded to A'viands. Aramark's menu diverged slightly
by offering breaded fish patties rather than the specified fish fillets and
12-ounce instead of 8-ounce oatmeal servings, Assistant State's Attorney Tom
Downing said. Potential savings -- However, County Board members are giving
Aramark another shot at the contract, opting for a fourth bid instead of
awarding the contract to A'viands. They say the county can save thousands of
dollars by changing bidding requirements. Instead of stipulating a specific
menu, board members want to mandate only certain nutritional requirements, as
was done during the second round of bidding. Allowing bidders to submit their
own menu resulted in a bid from Aramark that was $120,000 less than when it
followed a menu mandated by the county. That cost difference is enough to
justify yet another bid, said Sheahan, calling the whole process
"ridiculous." "We're basically having a $120,000 argument over
whether milk and oatmeal will fit on a tray, and I think we owe it to
taxpayers to make sure we are getting the best value for their money,"
he said. "We're not interested in spending extra every year so people at
the County Jail can eat fish fillets instead of fish sticks." Nothing to
hide -- Sheahan said a $500 contribution from Aramark to his primary campaign
had nothing to do with his support for a fourth bid. "I really don't
care whether Aramark gets it or not," he said. "I want the lowest
bid to get it. I think the interest of the committee is just to get the best
value for taxpayers." Saying she believes Aramark has submitted
responsible bids, Olson, of Wheaton, said she supports a fourth bid to
potentially save the $120,000. "This is about saving taxpayers
money," said Olson, who noted that she has supported extending the
temporary contracts to A'viands. "Any implications that my motivations
are other than in the best interests of taxpayers is insulting." Birkett,
who has received $3,600 from Aramark, said the campaign contributions played
no role in the opinion rendered by his office, which ruled Aramark's bid
noncompliant. "If I'm asked for opinion or legal guidance, I give it,
free from any political support I've received," Birkett said. The
recipient of $4,500 from Aramark, Schillerstrom sided with the state's
attorney, saying Aramark failed to meet the menu requirements. "I
believe A'viands is the lowest responsible bidder," he said. "I
think it's clear that Aramark did not comply with the bid." Zaruba did
not return a phone call seeking comment. Nutrition requirements -- Disputes
about nutrition requirements have plagued the bidding process, which began
last March. After the county declared A'viands the winner of the first bid,
Aramark filed a lawsuit claiming its submitted menus were deficient.
Schillerstrom upheld the protest, finding that both companies failed to meet
requirements and declared a second round of bidding. For the second bid, the
county outlined more specific nutrition standards. But both companies fell
short, saying it was impossible to meet sodium requirements. In the third
bid, the county hired a nutritionist to create a specific menu. While
A'viands said the menu gave clear and specific requirements, Aramark
disagreed. "It was crystal clear to us that we were to submit a menu
that exactly met those requirements, and that's what we did," said Perry
Rynders, CEO of A'viands. Rynders expressed "significant disappointment"
at the county's decision to hold another bid, saying no one had disputed that
A'viands did meet requirements. Temporary contract -- To keep prison inmates
fed, the county has issued a string of temporary contracts to A'viands since
July. But it's difficult to attract and hire good workers at the jail while
the contract remains in limbo, Rynders said. "It's very difficult for us
to find staff to work on a temporary basis," he said. "Each time
this comes up, they're wondering if their job is on the line. I don't think
the County Board understands how difficult this is on us." Aramark
spokesman Tim Elliot said the county should return to a nutrition-based bid
instead of one based on a menu. That is standard procedure for most of the
700 correctional facilities the company services worldwide, he said. Aramark
is a private company that is the 19th-largest employer on the Fortune 500,
employing 240,000 workers in 19 countries. Hospitals, eldercare centers,
schools, corporations and sports stadiums are among the company's clients. Board
member Jim Healy of Naperville agreed with Aramark that the county's
"ambiguous" menu should be thrown out in favor of nutritional
requirements. "We don't care what you serve as long as you meet the
nutritional standards," he said. The county should have stuck with very
basic nutritional requirements as it had done until last year, said board
member Jim Zay. "This is insane ... the more people we get involved, the
worse it gets," Zay said. "This has been costing us hundreds of
thousands more because we've been screwing around with it."

December
3, 2008 Star-LedgerThe family of a young girl paralyzed in a drunk-driving accident nine
years ago received a $25 million settlement from Aramark Corp., the Giants
Stadium beer vendor whose employees continued to serve the intoxicated fan
who caused the crash. The settlement with the family of Antonia Verni, who is
now 11, took place last year but was not disclosed until today, when a state
appeals court ruled that sealed documents in the case must be made public.
Antonia, a quadriplegic who requires a ventilator to breathe, received $23.5
million in the settlement, said the family's lawyer, David A. Mazie of
Roseland. Her mother, Fazila Verni, received $1.5 million for injuries she
suffered in the crash.

November
7, 2007 Financial Times
Madison Dearborn is preparing a sale of Valitas, a company that provides
medical care to prison populations, three sources told mergermarket. An
auction for the company will probably kick off early next year, and the
company is working on putting together a staple financing package at the
moment, according to one of the sources. UBS has been mandated to run the
process, the second source said. Valitas’ EBITDA is around USD 50m, according
to an industry banker. The company’s main subsidiary, Correctional Medical
Services, reached USD 750m in revenues in 2007, according to its website. The
company is likely to draw interest from private equity buyers only, as there
are no natural strategic buyers for the asset, the banker added. Valitas
could draw interest from Maximus, a listed provider of healthcare services to
the US government, a second industry banker said. Madison Dearborn backed a
management buyout of the Missouri-based company in 1997 from Aramark, the
company that provides food service and uniforms to institutions, according to
news reports. Under Aramark the division was called Spectrum Healthcare, and
included a business that provided contract healthcare services to the US
military. That business, however, was sold to Team Health, another Madison
Dearborn portfolio holding, in 2002. Team Health itself was sold to the
Blackstone Group, in 2005. The company is one of the oldest healthcare
investments in Madison Dearborn’s portfolio, the industry banker said. A
company spokesperson declined comment, and a Madison Dearborn official did
not return calls.

March
18, 2007 The OregonianFederal court statistics show that plaintiffs filed nearly 4,200 cases
under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which governs pay practices, in
fiscal 2006, which ended Sept. 30. That's up from 4,040 cases in fiscal 2005
and 2,751 in 2003. In Portland this month, Richard Bird filed a class-action
lawsuit against his ex-employer, Aramark Correctional Services Inc. He
alleges the nationwide prison-service provider broke Oregon laws by failing
to properly pay him and co-workers when they worked overtime, took rest
periods and put in for their final paychecks. An Aramark spokeswoman said
Friday that the company does not comment on pending litigation. Those claims
surfaced in a state court -- Multnomah County Circuit Court, specifically.
And although Oregon doesn't track civil cases by cause, attorneys say
wage-and-hour claims are numerous in state venues. Why the flood of cases?
It's easy for employers to make a mistake and relatively easy for employees
to make them pay for it, said Nancy Cooper, an attorney with Bullivant Houser
Bailey in Portland. Wage-and-hour rules are complicated and vary across state
lines, making national firms such as Philadelphia-based Aramark vulnerable.
Oregon, for instance, requires employers to provide paid 10-minute breaks,
Cooper said. Arizona does not.

February
3, 2007 AP
The first time Joseph Neubauer took Aramark Corp. private in 1984, the deal
was worth $889 million. When he and other managers led a leveraged buyout of
the nation's largest food services company a second time, the price tag
zoomed to $6.24 billion. And the biggest winner among shareholders at
Aramark, which Friday completed its first week as a newly private company?
Neubauer and his family, whose holdings soared in value to almost $1 billion.
That puts Neubauer, 65, who came to the United States from Israel alone at
the age of 14 and said he learned English from John Wayne movies, near the
top of the list of beneficiaries from a wave of leveraged buyouts that has
swept corporate America in the past year.

August
14, 2006 In These TimesWhile New Mexico’s landscape may make the state the Land of Enchantment,
its rapidly growing rates of incarceration have been utterly disenchanting.
What’s worse, New Mexico is at the top of the nation’s list for privatizing
prisons; nearly one-half of the state’s prisons and jails are run by
corporations. Supposedly, states turn to private companies to cope better
with chronic overcrowding and for low-cost management. However, a closer look
suggests a different rationale. A recent report from the Montana-based
Institute on Money in State Politics reveals that during the 2002 and 2004
election cycles, private prison companies, directors, executives and
lobbyists gave $3.3 million to candidates and state political parties across
44 states. According to Edwin Bender, executive director of the Institute on
Money in State Politics, private prison companies strongly favor giving to states
with the toughest sentencing laws—in essence, the ones that are more likely
to come up with the bodies to fill prison beds. Those states, adds Bender,
are also the ones most likely to have passed “three-strikes” laws. Those
laws, first passed by Washington state voters in 1993 and then California
voters in 1994, quickly swept the nation. They were
largely based on “cookie-cutter legislation” pushed by the American
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), some of whose members come from the
ranks of private prison companies. Florida leads the pack in terms of private
prison dollars, with its candidates and political parties receiving almost 20
percent of their total contributions from private prison companies and their
affiliates. Florida already has five privately owned and operated prisons,
with a sixth on the way. It’s also privatized the bulk of its juvenile
detention system. Texas and New Jersey are close behind. But in Florida, some
of the influence peddling finally seems to be backfiring. Florida State Corrections
Secretary James McDonough alarmed private prison companies with a comment
during an Aug. 2 morning call-in radio show. “I actually think the state is
better at running the prisons,” McDonough told an interviewer. His comments
followed an internal audit last year by the state’s Department of Management
Services, which demonstrated that Florida overpaid private prison operators
by $1.3 million. Things may no longer be quite as sunny as they once were in
Florida for the likes of Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of
America (CCA) and the former Wackenhut, now known as the GEO Group of Boca
Raton, Fla. But with a little bit of spiel-tinkering—and a shift of attention
to other states—the prison privatizers are likely to keep going. The key
shift, Bender explains, is that “the prison industry has gone from a we-can-save-you-money pitch to an economic-development
model pitch.” In other words, says Bender, “you need [their] prisons for
jobs.” If political donations are any measure, economically challenged and
poverty-stricken states like New Mexico are a great target. In this campaign
cycle, Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson has already received more
contributions from a private prison company than any other politician
campaigning for state office in the United States. The Institute of Money in
State Politics, which traced the donations, reported that GEO has contributed
$42,750 to Richardson since 2005—and another $8,000 to his running mate, Lt.
Gov. Diane Denish. Another $30,000 went from GEO to the Richardson-headed
Democratic Governors Association this past March. Richardson’s PAC, Moving
America Forward, was another prominent recipient of GEO donations. Now, its
former head, prominent state capitol lobbyist Joe Velasquez, is a registered
lobbyist for GEO Care Inc., a healthcare subsidiary that runs a hospital in
New Mexico. But don’t get the idea that GEO has any particular love for
Democrats: $95,000 from the corporation went to the Republican Governors
Association last year alone. What companies like GEO do love are the millions
of dollars rolling in from lucrative New Mexico contracts to run the Lea
County Correctional Facility (operating budget: $25 million/year), and the
Guadalupe County Correctional Facility ($13 million/year), among others. CCA
also owns and operates the state’s only women’s facility in Grants ($11
million per year). To make sure that those dollars keep flowing, GEO and CCA
have perfected the art of the “very tight revolving door,” says Bender, which
involves snapping up former corrections administrators, PAC lobbyists and
state officials to serve as consultants to private prison companies. In fact,
the current New Mexico Corrections Department Secretary Joe Williams was once
on GEO’s payroll as their warden of the Lea County Correctional Facility.
Earlier this year, Williams was placed on unpaid administrative leave after
accusations surfaced that he spent state travel and phone funds to pursue a
very close relationship with Ann Casey. Casey is a registered lobbyist in New
Mexico for Wexford Health Sources, which provides health care for prisoners
at Grants, and Aramark, which provides most of the state’s inmate meals. In
her non-lobbying hours, it turns out that Casey is also an assistant warden
at a state prison in Centralia, Ill. It appears that even for a prison
industry enchanted by public-private partnership, Williams and Casey may have
gone too far.

May
1, 2006 BloombergAramark Corp., the food-service company that sells hot dogs and beer at
Boston's Fenway Park and Shea Stadium in New York, received a $5.8 billion
takeover offer from a group led by its chairman and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
The group, which also includes JPMorgan Chase & Co., Thomas H. Lee
Partners LP and Warburg Pincus LLC, bid $32 a share, Philadelphia-based
Aramark said today in a statement. That's 14 percent more than its April 28
close. Aramark's shares surged as high as $34.95 as investors bet the
company, which also runs college and corporate cafeterias, would eventually
fetch more from the buyout group or another acquirer. The company's board
formed a committee of independent directors to review the proposal, Aramark
said. ``There exists for insiders an opportunity to
sell the company to a rival bidder or compete in a bidding war for the
company,'' JPMorgan Chase analyst Michael Fox wrote in a report. Fox has a
``neutral'' rating on Aramark. Private-equity firms have announced more than
$120 billion of takeovers this year, up from $83 billion in the same period
of 2005, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Pressure to meet quarterly
earnings targets and abide by new accounting and governance laws have pushed
some companies to go private. Leveraged buyout specialists usually borrow
about two- thirds of the purchase price to finance acquisitions. Their goal
is to improve the operating performance of the companies they purchase, often
by cutting costs, and then sell the companies in two to three years to make a
profit.

Beaver County Jail
Beaver County, Pennsylvania
CiviGenicsMay
24, 2007 Beaver Times
The Beaver County Commissioners' approval Thursday of a $72,000 payment to
settle claims from the Massachusetts company that almost took over the county
jail last year brings the total spent on trying to outsource the jail to
nearly $1 million. CiviGenics was poised to assume control of the jail in
October, but a ruling by President Judge Robert Kunselman ordering the county
to obey an arbitrator's decision halted the deal. Instead, the county signed
a new contract with jail guards. Commissioners had estimated that the county
could have saved as much as $1.9 million annually by outsourcing the jail to
CiviGenics. During the last week of December, the county paid CiviGenics
$125,000 under the terms of its contract. Thursday's payment will cover additional
expenses such as training and travel costs. "It's
fair compensation," said Commissioners Chairman Joe Spanik after the
board approved the payment. "They showed receipts for what (expenses)
were there." In addition to the payments made to CiviGenics, the
county's legal fees have reached nearly $793,000, said county financial
administrator Rob Cyphert. That figure covers this year, 2006 and 2005, and
includes not only work on privatization, but on contract negotiations with
the union and settlement talks with CiviGenics. Commissioner Charlie Camp
said he didn't regret trying to outsource the jail because "it was well
within our rights to do that." Camp said the savings over the life of
the guards' contract, estimated at $680,000 annually, will surpass the amount
spent on CiviGenics and legal fees so the county won't really lose any money.
"I regret we got two bad judgment calls from the arbitrator and the
county judge," Camp said. Asked if he regretted pursuing privatization
in light of the taxpayer money spent on the wasted effort, Spanik said
outsourcing appeared to be a "good deal" for the county, and
hindsight is always 20/20. "If I was a prognosticator," he said,
"I'd hit the lottery." Initially, CiviGenics asked for $329,000 to
cover its costs in preparing to manage the Hopewell Township jail, Cyphert
said. Spanik said the county balked at that figure, though, and officials
found some expenses they didn't think the county should pay. "We
scrutinized the bills they submitted to us," Spanik said. When the
$125,000 payment was made, county Solicitor Myron Sainovich said the county
might consider reimbursing CiviGenics for additional costs, such as training
and travel costs, because the county was unable to give the company any
notice before nixing the contract. "Quite frankly, we would've been
liable for those (expenses) because we were in breach," Sainovich said
Thursday. Sainovich said the $72,000 doesn't compensate CiviGenics for
"pain and suffering," but only for verifiable expenses.

January
10, 2007 Beaver Times
Beaver County has met its contractual obligation and paid $125,000 to the
company that would have taken over the county jail if a court ruling had not
nixed the deal, county solicitor Myron Sainovich said Wednesday. CiviGenics,
a Massachusetts-based company, was paid in the last week of December, said
Rob Cyphert, the county's financial administrator. Under terms of its
contract with CiviGenics, the county was obligated to pay the company no more
than $125,000 "for all reasonable and documented start-up expenses"
if the county decided against outsourcing the Hopewell Township jail. That's
exactly what happened after Beaver County President Judge Robert Kunselman
ruled that the county was required to abide by an arbitration decision that
prohibited privatization over the life of an arbitration-imposed three-year
contract. County commissioners chose not to appeal Kunselman's decision.
Instead of handing over management duties to CiviGenics on Oct. 31 as they
had planned, commissioners agreed to a new four-year contract that was
estimated to save the county about $600,000 a year. Commissioners had spent
more than two years studying privatization and at least $500,000 over several
months litigating their right to outsource the jail. They claimed the county
would've saved $1.9 million a year by contracting with CiviGenics. Last
month, commissioners raised county property taxes by 1 mill and laid the
blame squarely at Kunselman's feet. The county's tax rate is now 18.7 mills.
Sainovich said he hasn't heard of CiviGenics requesting additional money, but
the county might consider paying for other verifiable training and travel
costs. "The county will try and reimburse them for those (expenses)
because we did kind of go up until the last hour," he said.

November
29, 2006 Beaver TimesA county judge believes that even if operations at the Beaver County Jail
had been privatized, county residents would still have to pay higher taxes.
In a written opinion released Tuesday, President Judge Robert E. Kunselman disputed
county commissioners main argument: that turning
over operations at the Hopewell Township facility to the CiviGenics company
would save enough money that a tax increase could be avoided next year.
Kunselman made his ruling in late October; Tuesdays
opinion explained his reasoning. For months, commissioners pushed a plan that
said that if the Massachusetts-based private correctional services company
took over operations at the jail, the county could save $1.9 million
annually. The changeover from county to private oversight was halted by
Kunselman just a couple of days before the Oct. 30 switch was to take place.
Beaver County Commissioners Chairman Dan Donatella said Tuesday afternoon
that Kunselmans ruling was filled with errors, omissions and presumptions
about the county's budget. He promised a written response to Kunselmans
opinion within the next day or two. I am flabbergasted, Donatella said,
adding that he thinks Kunselman purposely waited until the day after an
appeal period had expired so that his written opinion wouldn't be questioned
by a higher court. Earlier, however, commissioners said Kunselmans order
barring privatization wouldn't be appealed because it was unlikely that a
higher court would overturn the decision. Kunselman declined to comment on Donatellas remarks. Kunselman became involved in the jail
issue when Service Employees International Union Local 668 sued the county
earlier this year, saying it had to abide by a contract arbitration award.
That arbitration included the prohibition of privatization for three years
and requiring jail employees to make concessions. The arbitration was
rendered moot when the county and jail employees came to an agreement in
October on a new four-year contract. In his October opinion, Kunselman ruled
there was no legal reason for the county to ignore the arbitration and
privatize the jail. Also, Kunselman said in the opinion that during hearings
on the arbitration award, county employees said the county would have a
$140,000 deficit at the end of November and would be in the red by $3 million
at the end of the year, if the arbitration was awarded. Kunselman said there
was no direct proof that the arbitration was the reason for the deficit. He
said that while the county projected a savings of $1.5 million in the first
year of privatization, it also projected a $3 million budget deficit. Thus,
we concluded that the county would have to increase taxes to pay for the
CiviGenics contract anyway, Kunselman said.

November
9, 2006 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The legal fight over privatizing the Beaver County Jail has cost the county
about $500,000, and that's just the beginning. The county commissioners will
sit down soon with representatives of CiviGenics Inc., the company they had
hired to run the jail, to work out a fair compensation for the company's
troubles. "We have calculated the cost of preparing to take over the
jail," company Chief Operating Officer Peter Argeropulos said, adding
that CiviGenics had put more than 50 people through guard training and had assembled
complete plans for the takeover and management. He declined to say what the
calculated number was. CiviGenics responded to a county inquiry in the summer
of last year, offering a deal that would have saved the county about $1.9
million a year. When the union representing the county-employed jail guards
couldn't match the savings, the commissioners announced the switch, dropping
the union and hiring CiviGenics starting Oct. 31. But four days before the
takeover, Common Pleas Judge Robert E. Kunselman ruled that the county had to
abide by an arbitration award that gave the union a new contract. The
commissioners announced Oct. 31 that they had accepted a deal with the union
and would not appeal the judge's ruling. Under the county's contract with CiviGenics,
it owes the company $125,000 if the deal gets scratched "through no
fault of the county." Asked if the company's costs exceeded $125,000,
Mr. Argeropulos replied, "Oh, certainly." But he expressed
confidence that a settlement could be worked out.

October
28, 2006 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Beaver County Jail will continue to be run by public employees, after a
court ruling yesterday that derailed the county's privatization move. Beaver
County President Judge Robert E. Kunselman upheld a June arbitration award
that gave the county's jail guards a new three-year contract. The county had
set Monday as the date for a Massachusetts firm, CiviGenics Inc., to take
over jail operations, a move that would have left the unionized guards out of
work. "It still hasn't hit home," union steward and jail guard Tom
Trkulja said. "From the beginning we believed the law says what the law
says and everybody has to follow it." The dispute has its roots in a
series of cost-cutting moves made by the county commissioners over the last
three years. Looking to pare the $6 million-plus jail budget, they decided to
take proposals for private management. CiviGenics in the summer of 2005 made
a proposal that would save the county $1.9 million a year, and with the union
contract expiring in December, the commissioners demanded that the union meet
that savings. When the union would not, the commissioners declared union
negotiations at an impasse and signed a contract with CiviGenics in January.
The union contract went to arbitration, but in June, before the arbitration
panel finalized its ruling, the county enacted its contract with the private
firm. CiviGenics has been hiring and training replacements for the 53
full-time and 17 part-time guards, who are members of Local 668 of the
Service Employees International Union. The union, however, asked the court to
enforce an arbitration award issued in June, which it regarded as binding.
The commissioners argued that since the award would force them to take
legislative action to raise money to pay the guards, state law rendered it
advisory only. In a hearing before Judge Kunselman on Tuesday, county
Financial Administrator Rob Cyphert testified that the county would run out
of cash in about a month under the union contract, and would likely have to
increase its debt load to stay afloat. The union, however, argued that the
county created its own budget crunch by basing its budget on the CiviGenics
deal. The county "engaged in bad faith bargaining by establishing a
budget which could only be accomplished by the privatization of the prison
without the legal authority to make such an assumption," the union's
legal brief said.

October
27, 2006 The Beaver TimesBeaver County Courthouse workers voted on a contract proposal Thursday
that union officials said was essential to keeping the county jail from being
privatized, but results were unavailable late Thursday. Whether their new
contract and the one approved this past Monday by jail guards actually save
enough money to persuade the county commissioners not to privatize the jail
this coming Monday remains to be seen. Service Employees International Union
Local 668 members were called to a 4:30 p.m. meeting at the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers hall in Vanport Township to vote on the
proposal that SEIU state officials unveiled in a tense meeting Tuesday.
Commissioners Chairman Dan Donatella and Commissioner Charlie Camp said late
Thursday they had yet to be informed of the result of the union's vote.
Commissioner Joe Spanik could not be reached for comment. The union is under
pressure to resolve the situation because Beaver County President Judge
Robert Kunselman is expected to issue his ruling today on whether the county
must abide by an arbitration decision released earlier this year. If
Kunselman would rule that the decision is not binding, the county would be
free to pursue privatization. At the Tuesday meeting, SEIU leaders told
courthouse workers that their new contract was being tied to the jail guards'
contract. The savings from those two contracts would be combined to try to
meet the financial demands of county commissioners, who want to privatize the
jail to save approximately $1.9 million annually.

October
26, 2006 Pittsburgh Post-GazetteManagement of the Beaver County Jail is up for determination tomorrow,
though whether it is by court order or through last-minute labor talks remains to be seen. County President Judge Robert E.
Kunselman plans to issue a ruling tomorrow on whether the county can turn
jail management over to a private firm Monday morning. Judge Kunselman held a
hearing Tuesday and demanded briefs from union and county attorneys by this
morning. The county commissioners are calling for a decision by tomorrow on
an across-the-board contract offer that would keep the unionized, publicly
employed jail guards in place but would include new contracts with five other
unions representing county workers. The last-ditch deal was ratified by the
jail guards Sunday, but faces an uphill battle with the other unions, which have
been working without contracts for almost two years while rejecting similar
offers. The unions held a tumultuous membership meeting Wednesday, with no
agreement forthcoming. If the unions decline the contract offer and Judge
Kunselman rules in the county's favor, CiviGenics Inc. will take over jail
management Monday. The takeover would culminate a two-year effort by the
commissioners to cut costs at the Hopewell facility.

October
25, 2006 Beaver TimesAs the deadline for privatizing the Beaver County Jail looms closer, it
appears the only way for jail guards to avoid losing their jobs is for
courthouse union members to accept concessions, too. But, if an emergency
meeting Tuesday of Service Employees International Union Local 668 members
who work at the courthouse is any indication, those jail guard jobs are as
good as gone. Courthouse workers were summoned to a meeting with state SEIU
officials at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers hall in
Vanport Township to hear a last-minute proposal to save the jobs of their
SEIU brethren at the jail. Once there, according to one employee who attended
the meeting but asked not to be identified, union officials told courthouse
workers to accept the contract terms presented or Massachusetts-based CiviGenics
would take over the jail. Some guards have applied to and been hired by
CiviGenics, but most would be laid off if the company took over. The employee
said the proposal would have workers pay 1 percent toward health-care
insurance costs in 2007 and 2008 and 1.5 percent starting in 2009. Employees
would receive raises of 2.5 percent on Jan. 1; 3 percent in 2008 and 3.5
percent in 2009. Courthouse workers have been without a contract since Jan.
1, 2004, and negotiations have snagged on wages and the county's demand that
employees start contributing to health insurance costs. Other terms,
according to the employee, include a one-week reduction in the maximum amount
of vacation earned (from five to four weeks) and the loss of three holidays
(Flag Day, Dec. 26 and an employee's birthday). The employee said the raucous
meeting ended with frustrated courthouse workers leaving without taking a
vote. Tuesday's meeting followed a vote by jail guards Monday to accept a
contract proposal. Union officials would not publicly discuss the contract,
but one said it was similar to an arbitration decision released earlier this
year. That decision reduced the number of full-time guards, froze wages for
jail guards for three years and implemented a 1 percent contribution toward
health insurance. But it also prohibited the county from privatizing the jail
for three years. County commissioners, though, rejected the arbitration decision, saying that the purported $450,000 in savings
fell short of the estimated $1.9 million the county could save by having
CiviGenics manage the jail in Hopewell Township. CiviGenics is scheduled to
take over the jail Monday, so pressure is mounting on jail guards to do
something or face layoffs. Whatever the guards agreed to apparently still
didn't meet the commissioners' financial demands, so courthouse employees
were asked to take concessions in order to package a cost-saving deal to the
county. One flier being circulated around the courthouse Tuesday perfectly
illustrated the feelings over the proposal. "We are not happy about this
and hope that everyone will not be blackmailed by the commissioners,"
the flier read. In a related matter Tuesday, attorneys for the SEIU and the
county debated the merits of the arbitration decision before Beaver County President
Judge Robert E. Kunselman. Both sides said they expect Kunselman to issue a
decision by Friday. The union wants Kunselman to order the county to abide by
the arbitration decision, while county commissioners argue that the ruling
would force them to raise property taxes to pay for the jail. Before that
hearing began, Claudia Lukert, the SEIU's attorney, withdrew the union's
request for an injunction, but she refused to explain why.

October
17, 2006 Beaver TimesA hearing that could decide the fate of the Beaver County Jail is
expected to be moved up a week, as a final deadline looms. Civigenics is
scheduled to take over management of the jail on Oct. 30, in a move that
county commissioners have billed as one that will save taxpayers money.
Within the past few weeks, representatives of Service Employees International
Union Local 668 filed suit against Beaver County, asking a judge for an
injunction that would stop the switchover from county to private supervision.
Under the changeover, dozens of current jail guards would lose their jobs.

October
12, 2006 Beaver TimesBeaver County President Judge Robert Kunselman apparently doesn't believe
in the old idiom "A day late and a dollar short." Even though
CiviGenics is poised to take over management of the county jail Oct. 30,
Kunselman has scheduled a hearing on a request for an injunction from the
jail guards' union for Oct. 31. Beaver County Commissioners Chairman Dan
Donatella said the head-scratching decision by Kunselman would not stop
CiviGenics from taking over the jail as scheduled. "We can't sit around
and speculate on what is going to happen," Donatella said. The judge's
decision is bewildering because county officials have made it clear over the
last few weeks in newspaper articles and letters to jail employees that
CiviGenics would assume control Oct. 30. Kunselman did not respond to a
telephone message left at his courthouse office Wednesday seeking an
explanation for his decision. Dave Ramsey, the jail guards' union
representative with Service Employees International Union Local 668, also did
not return a message left at his office. To win an injunction, county
solicitor Myron Sainovich said the union must prove to Kunselman that it is
likely that it would prevail in litigation and that irreparable harm would
occur if the jail were privatized. "I don't believe they can show
that," Sainovich said. The Pittsburgh law firm of Thorp, Reed &
Armstrong is representing the county in litigation about the jail. In a
one-page order, Kunselman gave both sides until Oct. 27 to submit briefs
"on the question of whether or not injunctive relief can or should be
granted." This is the second recent court decision on the jail takeover
that has raised the eyebrows of county officials. Six of the seven judges
rejected a county request to recuse themselves from litigation involving the
jail to avoid conflicts of interest. Judge Deborah Kunselman removed herself
from any hearings citing her former position as county solicitor.

October
5, 2006 Pittsburgh Post-GazetteBeaver County labor leaders might soon face a touchy, difficult choice.
They hate seeing the county bringing in a private firm to run the county
jail, and they feel betrayed by Democratic Commissioners Dan Donatella, a
longtime friend of labor, and Joe Spanik, a labor official elected in 2003.
But would they go as far as to shut down all political activities? Would they
punish Mike Veon, of Beaver, and Vince Biancucci, of Center, incumbent
Democratic state legislators counting on union support for re-election? Such
a request is implied in a Sept. 26 letter from Kathy Jellison, president of
Local 668 of the Service Employees International Union, to its members who
are county employees working at the jail. "It is no longer acceptable
for local party leaders and other elected officials to remain silent while
asking us to help them," the letter says. "They must stand with
us." The letter says Local 668 plans "to demand an immediate
suspension of all electoral activity in Beaver County by organized labor. ...
We are requesting that labor organizations shut down phone banks, labor walks
and all other in-kind contributions. ... We are requesting that you and/or
your family members not take part in any candidate on the ballot in the
county. Cash contributions should be suspended as well." In a county
that is still heavily Democratic and where organized labor is still a huge
political force, the idea has people nervous, waiting to see if the request
is actually made.

October
3, 2006 Beaver Times
In an order signed Monday, only Judge Deborah Kunselman recused herself from
hearing any arguments, citing the fact that she was county solicitor when the
move to privatize the jail began. The county had asked the judges to remove
themselves from any cases concerning litigation with Service Employees
International Union Local 668, which represents the jail guards. SEIU opposed
the county's request, insisting that any arguments should be heard by a
Beaver County judge. The union has asked for an injunction to halt the county
from handing the reins of the jail to CiviGenics on Oct. 30 and it has asked
the court to order the county to abide by an arbitrator's contract decision
that prohibited the county from privatizing the jail. County commissioners
have said the decision was not binding and that they don't have to obey it
because doing so would force them to pass a tax increase to pay for jail
operations. "This is a Beaver County problem," said Dave Ramsey,
the jail guards' SEIU representative. "We're satisfied that this is
going to stay before Beaver County judges." Ramsey said he found it
insulting that Beaver County tried to get the jail litigation "shipped
off to another county."

September
28, 2006 Pittsburg Post-GazetteBarring further legal action, private enterprise will manage the Beaver
County Jail beginning Oct. 30. The county issued a letter Tuesday informing
jail workers -- who are all Beaver County employees -- that Civigenics Inc.
would be taking over jail operations. The Marlborough, Mass., company
operates prisons nationwide, including the jail in Columbiana County, Ohio,
which borders Beaver. The announcement was not unexpected, since the county
activated its contract with Civigenics June 22, and the contract gave the
company 120 days to take over operations. The move has been opposed in court,
however, by the local unit of the Service Employees International Union,
representing corrections officers at the jail.

August
3, 2006 Pittsburg Post-GazetteLawyers representing Beaver County do not think county judges would be biased
in the case pitting the county against its jail guards' union. But they do
think there is an appearance of the possibility of bias, and are thus asking
that the county's seven judges be recused from the case -- meaning it would
be handled by a retired judge or one from another county. The county's
attorneys -- Joseph Friedman, Kurt Miller and Amy Herne, of Thorp Reed and
Armstrong, Pittsburgh -- made the recusal motion yesterday. "Because the
county has set aside 10 percent of the general fund budget for the jail, any
deviation from that budget will have a direct and material impact on the
other operations funded through the general fund, including the courthouse
and the court of Common Pleas," the argument for recusal reads. The
judge, whoever it eventually is, will play at least a minor role in deciding
the fate of the county jail, whether it will continue as a county-run,
union-worked facility or whether it will be privately run. The county has
signed a contract with a private firm, CiviGenics Texas Inc., to take over
jail operations, looking for a savings of about $1.9 million a year.
Meanwhile, the county went through arbitration with the guards' union over a
contract that expired at the end of 2005, and the arbitration panel signed
off on a deal that would keep the union guards in place but would cost the
county more. The union regards the arbitration award as binding. The county
regards it as advisory, arguing that holding to it would force county
commissioners to take legislative action in the form of a tax hike, and that
arbitration can't force a county to take legislative action. That's an
argument the commissioners set in stone last Thursday, passing a three-page
resolution stating the position that the arbitration award is advisory only
and empowering the county's attorneys to fight it. The resolution states that
county funds are already earmarked for other departments and programs, many
of which are mandated by the state or federal government. Reserves need to be
protected in case of cash-flow problems, meaning the only way to pay for the
arbitration award would be to borrow money, paying it back through higher
taxes later. "The commissioners hereby reject the award as an
unconstitutional infringement on the legislative powers of the commissioners,
and deem the award to be advisory only in nature ..." the resolution
reads. The resolution brought a long pause from Commissioner Joe Spanik, a
labor leader before his 2003 election. "That's a tough one," he
said quietly, before eventually seconding Commissioner Charlie Camp's motion
and voting for the resolution. After the meeting, Mr. Spanik said he felt the
advisory nature of the award to be up to the courts to determine, though he
backed the county's stance. The union, Local 668 of the Service Employees
International Union, has filed a petition asking the court to enforce the
arbitration award, and has also filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Labor
Relations Board.

July
20, 2006 Pittsburgh Post-GazetteBeaver County Commissioners are going full-steam ahead with plans to
privatize the county jail while the union representing the guards is chugging
right back with legal action to stop the move. "We feel we have to go
forward with it," commissioners' chairman Dan Donatella said. "There
is too huge a savings for the taxpayers for us not to." Meanwhile, the
county's contractor, CiviGenics Inc., is interviewing potential guards. In
response, the union: On July 10 filed a petition asking the county Common
Pleas Court to uphold a favorable arbitration award. On July 12 filed a
complaint with the state Labor Relations Board. On Monday filed a motion for
an injunction to keep the county from continuing its move to CiviGenics.
"The county commissioners want to be above the law, to ignore the
arbitration award and do what they want anyway," union steward Tom
Trkulja said. The issue has roots going back to late 2004, when the
commissioners hired a private firm to manage the county-owned nursing home
and started considering the jail as another candidate for privatization. The
county put out a request for proposals early in 2005, and CiviGenics, based
in Marlborough, Mass., offered a plan in June 2005 that included $1.8 million
in annual savings. The county asked the guards' union to offer similar
savings in a new contract -- the old labor agreement expired Dec. 31 -- but
the contract went to arbitration when the union declined to match the private
offer. On June 7, after seeing a preliminary proposal from the arbitrator,
the county told the union it would go ahead with the CiviGenics deal. It sent
an official letter to that effect June 22, the same day the arbitration award
was announced. The union ratified the arbitrator's proposal, which offered
about $400,000 in savings. The union -- Local 1168 of the Service Employees
International Union -- contends that the arbitration award is legal and
binding. "They can't just ignore it," business agent Dave Ramsey
said. The county contends that while arbitration can determine what a
contract will include, it can't stop the county from simply walking away and
going in a different direction. "If an arbiter has that kind of
power" -- to force a county into a union contract if it has other
options -- "then the contract will run forever, and just keep getting
renewed," Mr. Donatella said. In fact, Mr. Donatella said, the dispute
could end up touching on some important uncharted territory. Depending what
happens, the courts could end up determining whether counties have an
automatic right to subcontract work, or if they only have that right when it
is specifically allowed in their union contracts. "Many, many, many
counties are watching this case," he said. If counties have a general
right to employ subcontractors, it would make privatization a lot easier.
Beaver County's old union contract said nothing about subcontracting work to
a private business. The county contends that since it is not specifically
forbidden, it is an option the county has. "That's a management
decision," Mr. Donatella said. "I can't believe we don't have the
right to manage." The union contends that since the arbitration award
does include language on subcontracting -- the award says the county cannot
subcontract work during the length of the new, arbitrated union contract --
then the county's hands are tied. "My understanding of the law is that
if it isn't in the contract then you have to bargain for it," Mr. Ramsey
said, "and that's what we did." He said top SEIU officials, like
county officials, are watching the case closely. "They have to decide
how they want to use their resources," he said. "I don't know if
we're going to have purple shirts" -- the union's trademark color --
"marching in Beaver or not." Meanwhile, CiviGenics has until early
September to take over jail operations, barring an injunction, and already is
interviewing potential jail guards, including some union members.
"Nobody really wants to work for this company," Mr. Trkulja said,
"but some of the guys, because of the way their lives are, are going to
have to." He said generally people are keeping quiet on the issue. There
have been some hard feelings and a little name-calling, but nothing more
serious than that, and union leaders are not asking members whether they are
doing interviews. "There are mixed emotions down there," he said.
"A lot of people are at somewhat of a low point."

July
18, 2006 Beaver TimesThe union representing the Beaver County Jail guards filed for an
injunction on Monday to stop the county from contracting with CiviGenics to
manage the Hopewell Township jail. Service Employees International Union
Local 668's motion for an injunction filed in Beaver County Court said
allowing the county to contract with the Massachusetts-based CiviGenics would
"cause immediate and irreparable harm to the employees," who would "suffer
a loss of employment, medical coverage and other benefits ....." SEIU
asked the court to grant an injunction "until (the union) has fully
exhausted the administrative and judicial remedies." One of those
remedies, presumably, is the union's request - filed July 10 - to have the
county court force the county commissioners to honor an arbitration decision
released by a panel last month. A neutral arbitrator and a union
representative on the panel approved the decision, while county Solicitor
Myron Sainovich, the panel's third member, rejected it. The union insists the
arbitration decision is binding, but the county disagrees. Under the
three-year decision, wages would be frozen and the number of full-time jail
guards would be reduced, but the county would also be prohibited from
privatizing the operation of the facility. The county's attorneys have said
the arbitration decision would save the county $450,000 annually for three
years, compared to the more than $4 million that would be saved by
contracting with CiviGenics through 2008. Asked if the request for an
injunction would affect the ongoing privatization process, Sainovich replied,
"Not at this point in time." Claudia Lukert, SEIU's Harrisburg
attorney, didn't return a message left at her office. County financial
administrator Rob Cyphert said the county's contract with CiviGenics calls
for the company to be reimbursed up to $125,000 for recruiting expenses
"if they don't ultimately end up running the operation at the
jail." A temporary halt to the process would not trigger that clause,
Cyphert said. CiviGenics asked current guards to submit applications by July
14, and it was scheduled to hold a job fair at Penn State-Beaver today.

June
29, 2006 Beaver TimesHow frayed has the relationship between Beaver County and the union
representing its jail guards become amid contract arbitration and a move to
privatize the jail? So tattered that when Service Employees International
Union Local 668 business agent Dave Ramsey was told Wednesday that the county
commissioners were disappointed in an arbitration decision that saved the
county "only" $450,000 annually, this was his reaction: "Tell
them to go (expletive) themselves, and you can tell them I said that."
Well, then. The relationship won't improve now that an arbitration panel has
issued a decision that would prohibit privatization from happening through
2008 and reduce the number of full-time guards, but would also freeze wages
for three years and implement a 1 percent employee contribution toward health
insurance. That's because county commissioners probably won't accept the
deal, which they say falls far short of the estimated $1.9 million the county
would save if the jail was outsourced to the Massachusetts company
CiviGenics. "It is unlikely that this board is going to accept
that," Commissioners Chairman Dan Donatella said of the decision by
arbitrator Marc Winters that was agreed to by SEIU representative Rick Adams.
The decision was issued Thursday, only hours after commissioners declared
negotiations at an impasse and voted to authorize CiviGenics to start the
takeover process. "We dislike just about everything (in the decision),
but we're pleased they're not going to have any (privatization) for the life
of the contract," Ramsey said. County Solicitor Myron Sainovich - who
along with Winters and Adams made up the arbitration panel - rejected the
decision. The arbitration decision would not keep the county from
privatization, he said.

June
23, 2006 Beaver TimesA Massachusetts company could take over operation of the Beaver County
Jail by October after county commissioners on Thursday declared negotiations
with the guards at an impasse and unanimously approved privatizing the
facility. "This," said Commissioner Joe Spanik,
"is the next step forward." County Solicitor Myron Sainovich said
officials hope to have CiviGenics in place no later than Oct. 15. Sainovich,
who represented the county on the three-member arbitration panel in April,
said Butler County arbitrator Marc Winters, the agreed-to neutral party, gave
his proposal in May, but the county rejected it. Sainovich said the union
rejected the proposal as well, although no union representative would confirm
that on Thursday. Rick Adams, a representative for Service Employees
International Union Local 668, argued for the jail guards in arbitration; he
could not be reached at his Erie office. Sainovich would not release Winters'
proposal because it was not a final decision. Winters did not return a
telephone message left on Thursday. But Sainovich said late Thursday
afternoon that Winters was preparing a revised proposal that would be given
to both sides for consideration. Tom Trkulja, the guards' chief union
steward, said he was unaware of the commissioners' vote.

June
23, 2006 Tribune-ReviewA private company will take over management and operations of the Beaver
County Jail by Oct. 15, county commissioners said Thursday. Putting
CiviGenics Inc. in charge of the 360-bed jail in Hopewell will save the
county $1.9 million in the first year of the deal, commissioners said in a
news release. The county will pay CiviGenics $14.6 million over three years
to run the jail. The union representing 72 county jail guards fought the
move, fearing pay cuts and the loss of benefits, and they questioned private
prisons' safety record and officials' rosy savings projections. "You
shouldn't be imprisoning people for profit," Service Employees
International Union Local 668 business agent Dave Ramsey said.

April
20, 2006 Pittsburgh Post-GazetteThe fate of Beaver County's push to privatize the county jail now rests
in the hands of Marc Winters, an arbiter from Butler County. Beaver County
officials and jail guards testified before a three-member arbitration panel
April 12 and last Thursday, making their cases for alternative versions of
how the Beaver County Jail should be run. With one of the three panel members
selected by the county and one by the guards, however, it is essentially up
to the one neutral arbiter, Mr. Winters, to say what should happen. The
county has signed a contract with a Massachusetts firm, CiviGenics Inc., to
take over management of the jail. The county says it can save up to $1.6
million a year by moving the jail into the private sector. The corrections
officers union, working without a contract since Jan. 1, made a
counterproposal, but it could not match the savings promised by CiviGenics.
The union filed for arbitration after the county signed the CiviGenics
contract. Neither guard nor county representatives would talk in detail about
the proceedings, which were closed to the public. County financial
administrator Rob Cyphert and jail Warden Bill Schouppe were the county's
primary witnesses; three corrections officers testified for the union.

March
27, 2006 Beaver TimesThe bitter contract negotiations between Beaver County Jail guards and
the county will go before an arbitration panel next month at the county
courthouse. County solicitor Myron Sainovich said last week that the county
and the jail guards' union will square off April 12 and 13 in closed sessions.
A three-member panel will hear arguments, but the decision essentially boils
down to which side can win over the one neutral arbitrator. Sainovich will
sit on the panel as the county's representative, and Rick Adams, a Service
Employees International Union Local 668 business agent, will represent the
guards. Butler County lawyer Marc Winters was picked as the neutral member by
the county and the union. Sainovich said the two-day hearing will resemble a
trial, with county officials involved in negotiations being called to
testify. Although the county is poised to privatize the jail and allow
CiviGenics to take over operations, county commissioners have said they would
keep the jail under county control if they could get the financial
concessions they're looking for. County officials have said the
Massachusetts-based CiviGenics could save Beaver County $5 million over the
next three years, but jail guards have questioned the validity of those
estimates. The county has said the guards have not offered savings anywhere
close to what CiviGenics is promising. As the arbitration process winds to a
conclusion, the county continues to operate the jail, and guards continue to
work under the terms of the contract that expired at the end of 2005.

February
16, 2006 Pittsburgh Post-GazetteBeaver County commissioners yesterday unanimously passed a 2006 budget
with no tax increase. The county's millage rate will hold at 17.7 mills, the
same as it was in 2005. The projected total budget is roughly $257.5 million
for the county's 29 separate funds and includes no major cuts or additions in
funding or programs. The budget likely will be amended in the near future
depending on the outcome of an arbitrator's decision on a contract between
the county and the Local 668 of the Service Employees International Union,
which represents the county jail's roughly 80 guards. The guards' contract
expired on Dec. 31, and the two sides are at an impasse after the county
decided to contract with a private firm, Civigenics, to run the jail. The county
hopes to save upward of $1.5 million a year by switching to a private firm;
guards are concerned that they might have to face sizable pay and benefit
cuts to retain their jobs with a private company.

January
24, 2006 Beaver Times
Beaver County will pay CiviGenics $14.6 million over the next three years to
manage the county jail, and it retains the right to cancel the contract at
any time without giving a reason. Peter Argeropulos, CiviGenics' chief
operating officer, said the deal is pretty typical of the company's other
contracts. Current jail guards have said that private guards make
considerably less than the $17.33 per hour the county now pays. Argeropulos
said the wage scale would range from $10 per hour for entry-level guards to
$14 per hour for guards with seniority. The benefits package would be a
dramatic change for guards, who now pay nothing for health insurance.
Argeropulos said company employees generally pay about 30 percent of
health-insurance costs.

January
19, 2006 Beaver TimesBefore the Beaver County Prison Board approved privatizing the Beaver
County Jail, guards offered a plan that would have saved the county $1.6
million this year, the same as a private company has promised, a union
official said Wednesday. "We tried to save (the county) as much money as
we could," said Tom Trkulja, the chief union steward for the jail
guards. Commissioners Chairman Dan Donatella said the contract with
Massachusetts-based CiviGenics was executed Wednesday. "It's signed,
sealed and delivered," he said. Trkulja charged that the county is
demanding outrageous concessions from the guards that no other county unions
have been offered. He said the guards have been asked to accept a 25 percent
cut in hourly wages and pay a 25 percent health insurance premium while other
county employees pay 1 percent. The county also wants to slash the number of
full-time guards from 55 to 49 and part-time guards from 22 to 15, Trkulja
said. Although it doesn't want to hurt other county workers, the union is
exploring what bumping rights guards might have so they could move into other
county jobs if they get displaced by CiviGenics, Trkulja said.

January
18, 2006 Beaver TimesNearly two years after the Beaver County Commissioners first talked about
privatizing the Beaver County Jail, the county prison board on Tuesday
authorized them to contract with a Massachusetts company to run the Hopewell
Township facility. "It's a contract that is good for the county,"
said Rick Towcimak, prison board member and county controller. Under the
proposed contract with CiviGenics, the county would save a projected $5
million over the next three years. Most of the savings would come from the
county no longer employing jail guards and having to pay their salaries and
benefits. Tom Trkulja, the chief union steward for the county's jail guards,
said the vote was a surprise to him and he again insisted that privatization
would only create problems for the county and its residents. "Taxpayers
are going to lose on this," Trkulja said. "We're all going to
lose." Towcimak said he was initially skeptical about the savings
expected from CiviGenics, but he is now convinced the figures are realistic.
Also, he said the public would not be endangered by having a private company
operate the jail, something the current jail guards have repeatedly warned
about. "We've seen things happen down at the jail now, and it's not
private," said Towcimak. Last month, a jail sergeant was fired for
mistakenly releasing an accused child molester, the third time the sergeant
had wrongly released an inmate in 2005. Towcimak said he had also received
assurances from CiviGenics that the "vast majority" of jail guards
would be offered jobs at comparable wages. Trkulja bristled at those
comments, saying the union has been told that each full-time guard would have
to accept an $18,000 pay cut.

January
1, 2006 AP
Beaver County says it is prepared to hire a private management firm to run
the county jail, which officials say would save the county $5 million over
three years. But the union representing the guards, whose contract expired
Saturday, says it hopes a new proposal will save the county enough money to
fend off privatization and ultimately save most of their jobs. "We're
making every attempt we can to come up with ways to save them money, said Tom
Trkulja, the union steward for the jail's 70 full-time and part-time guards.
CiviGenics of Massachusetts has said it could save the county about $1.6
million a year over what it pays its guards currently - a projection disputed
by the union. If CiviGenics is hired, the company would have the option of
keeping the existing staff, but Trkulja said about 80 percent of the guards
would probably not take the jobs because of the lower pay. Although
negotiators for two sides are scheduled to meet Jan. 9, the county approved a
budget last week that includes the $1.6 million annual savings expected if
CiviGenics is hired.

December
27, 2005 Beaver Times
Under Beaver County's preliminary 2006 budget that commissioners should
approve on Thursday, there won't be a county property tax increase for a
second consecutive year. Commissioners are prepared to outsource the
management of the jail to the Massachusetts company CiviGenics for a
projected savings of nearly $5 million over the next three years, including
at least $1.6 million in 2006. Savings achieved through no longer having to
pay benefits could push those figures higher. Health coverage accounts for
nearly $760,000, according to the county's 2005 budget, with dental and
vision costing an additional $55,000. Taking all costs into account, the
total savings from outsourcing could easily exceed $2 million annually.
Service Employees International Union Local 668, the union representing
county jail guards, has disputed the numbers contained in CiviGenics' proposal.
And union officials have also been reviewing the contract proposal in an
effort to submit their own proposal. The union's contract expires Dec. 31,
and both sides have been negotiating. Donatella said commissioners expect
significant savings from the jail whether they're provided by the union or
CiviGenics. "We'll be more than happy to keep (the jail) in-house as
long as the savings are there," Donatella said.

December
15, 2005 Pittsburgh Post Gazette
It is, essentially, a tale of 2 mills. If the Beaver County commissioners get
a Massachusetts firm to run the county jail, or if they strike an equivalent
deal with the union representing jail workers, they expect to pass a budget
with no tax increase. If they keep running the jail under the terms of the
existing union contract, they expect to pass a budget with a tax increase of
about 2 mills. They plan to approve a preliminary budget Dec. 29, including
the projected savings under the contract with CiviGenics, Inc., and then
hunker down to see what happens next. If the union makes an offer with
equivalent savings, they'll pass the preliminary budget essentially
unchanged. If the commissioners sign with CiviGenics, they expect the union
to go to court, seeking an injunction delaying the contract. If the court
grants an injunction, the commissioners would be forced to continue operating
the jail under the terms of the existing union contract, and would then pass
a budget with a tax increase to pay for it. Dave Ramsey, business agent for
Local 668 SEIU of the Pennsylvania Social Services Union, said the union
would be coming up with a counter-offer, but that it would not match the one
from CiviGenics. "We are going to make a proposal to them that includes
enough people to actually man all the duty stations," he said, labeling
the private proposal a "ghost offer" based on hiring and staffing
assumptions that fly in the face of reality. Mr. Ramsey said the county was
having trouble hiring corrections officers now, leading him to doubt whether CiviGenics
can do so at lower wages. "The prospects of this proposal from
CiviGenics being viable are not very high," he said.

November
6, 2005 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Beaver County is an unlikely place for a conservative revolution. Democrats hold
a two-to-one registration advantage, have dominated county government for
decades, own the state legislative seats. The steel
mills are gone, but a blue collar is still a badge of honor and unions remain
a political force. Inside the offices of the county commissioners, though,
the flag of private enterprise is flying high -- high enough to draw repeated
protests from local union officials. Over the last year, the commissioners
have brought in new management for the county nursing home,
outsourced services like printing, nursing home laundry and lawn care, and
named a private restaurant to run the courthouse lunchroom as a for-profit
entity, not to mention two rounds of layoffs, the first two in county
history. And they're in the process of making two larger moves toward
privatization: They solicited private companies to build and manage a
regional juvenile detention center in the county and they have negotiated a
tentative agreement for a private company to take over the county jail. The
moves have local unions howling. "Our number one concern is for
safety," said Ed Rowan, a correctional officer at the county jail and
safety officer for Local 668 of the Service Employees International Union.
"That's a big issue when it comes to private prisons. They have less
training and lower wages." There is an even larger issue, though, that
has the union's state headquarters on high alert as well. To put it simply,
if this can happen here, it can happen anywhere. Beaver's move toward private
management at the jail would be even more revolutionary, though it's not a
done deal -- the union's contract runs through Dec. 31, and the county cannot
make a change until then. The county does, however, have a basic agreement in
place with CiviGenics Inc., of Marlborough, Mass. The bottom line is $1.8
million in promised savings annually, with perhaps another $600,000 in annual
pension and benefit savings on top of it. If that happens, Beaver will be
only the second county in Pennsylvania with a privately run jail -- the other
is Delaware County, just south of Philadelphia. The protests of unions has
been backed by a vociferous anti-private-jail lobby, which has Web sites and
publications offering thousands of pages of horror stories and studies
disputing the industry's claims of safety and savings. And in fact, Delaware
has run into some recent problems, with five deaths in five months, sparking
an internal investigation and one by the county district attorney's office.
The county and jail operator The Geo Group Inc. are named in a $500,000
lawsuit by the family of a man who died in the jail of a drug overdose in
April.

October
14, 2005 Beaver County Times
Beaver County Jail guards picketed the courthouse again on Thursday to
protest the privatization of the jail, and a union official gave the county
commissioners a petition bearing more than 1,400 names opposing the move.
County residents are "beginning to become aware of what's happening, and
they don't like it," said Dave Ramsey, the business agent for Service
Employees International Union Local 668. Ramsey told the commissioners at
their regular meeting that he noticed several resolutions on last month's
agenda that addressed increases in contracts. He warned the commissioners
that they'd be doing the same with CiviGenics if they outsource the jail to
the Massachusetts company. Commissioners Chairman Dan Donatella didn't
appeared swayed by the petition or the 1,472 signatures.

September
29, 2005 Beaver County Times
Beaver County Commissioner Joe Spanik is between the proverbial rock and a
hard place as county officials inch closer and
closer to privatizing the Beaver County Jail. "Absolutely, there's
pressure," said Spanik, a longtime labor official who was elected in
2003 with the support of unions. As the move to privatize the jail in
Hopewell Township picks up steam, Spanik has become the sounding board for
not only jail guards, but local and state union officials who oppose
outsourcing the jail's management to Massachusetts-based CiviGenics. Spanik
found himself in an awkward position recently when the Beaver County Central
Labor Council, on which Spanik sits, approved a resolution opposing
privatization. Spanik abstained from the vote approving the resolution.

September
23, 2005 Beaver County Times
The debate over privatizing the Beaver County Jail intensified Thursday with
jail guards picketing at the county courthouse and commissioners saying they
might hire a public relations firm to counter union criticism. Prior to the
commissioners' meeting at 10 a.m., about 30 people - mostly guards, their
families and other union colleagues - carried signs and passed out fliers
protesting the possible hiring of CiviGenics, based in Marlborough, Mass., to
manage and staff the jail. Standing with other protesters along Market
Street, Tom Trkulja, the guards' union steward, reiterated his stance that a
purported $5 million in savings over three years is being exaggerated. Not only would hidden costs ultimately cost taxpayers more
in the long run, but private jail guards are not as dedicated as public ones,
he argues, which would compromise the safety of guards, inmates and
residents.
During the commissioners' meeting, Ramsey presented Commissioners Chairman
Dan Donatella with a resolution from the Beaver County Labor Council opposing
privatization and asking that the county disclose CiviGenics' record,
including its operation of the Penn Pavilion minimum-security jail in New
Brighton. Donatella said the board is considering hiring a public relations
firm that would direct the county's response to the union's attacks on
privatization. "We need to show the taxpayer where we're coming
from," he said. Donatella said a public-relations campaign might include
pamphlets, radio spots and newspaper ads. "We're going to present the
facts," he said, "and we'll let the public decide."

September
22, 2005 Pittsburgh Post Gazette
For nearly a year, the Beaver County commissioners have been talking about
hiring a private firm to run the county jail. In that same time, the union
representing corrections officers at the jail has been making dire
predictions about the impact of such a move. And last night, the Beaver
County Central Labor Council told the commissioners at their meeting that
they too object to the county prison board negotiating a contract with
CiviGenics Inc., the Marlborough, Mass. company that submitted the sole
proposal to manage the jail. All three commissioners serve on the prison
board. The labor council said it opposes "any scheme that risks the
health and safety of all [county] residents by contraction with out-of-state
contractors who don't care about Beaver County and whose sole concern is
taking precious taxpayer dollars out of the community." The council
claims CiviGenics' projected savings of $1.8 million per year in operating
costs is vastly overstated, partly because it's based on a jail budget larded
with overtime. The council also said CiviGenics' numbers do not account for
increased costs from a higher number of escapes and assaults they expect from
a lower-paid corrections staff. But the "No. 1 concern is safety,"
said Ed Rowan, a corrections officer and safety officer for Local 668 of the
Service Employees International Union. "That's the big issue when it
comes to a private prison," he said. "You have people with less
training making lower wages.

Bedford County Jail
Johnstown, Pennsylvania
PrimeCare
January 6, 2009 AP
A prison health care provider and the family of a western Pennsylvania man
who died in a prison have settled a lawsuit. John Margo claimed his son,
23-year-old James Margo, started to go through heroin withdrawal at the
Bedford County Prison when he was jailed in June 2002. The suit claimed
medical personnel did nothing to help him. He died July 5, 2002. A lawyer for
PrimeCare Medical Inc. says terms of the settlement can't be released.
PrimeCare has denied responsibility throughout the case. Margo had been in
prison for a parole violation in a drug case.

PHILADELPHIA — The estate of a Coatesville man who died in
Chester County Prison while awaiting sentencing on drug charges has sued the
prison, as well as the facility’s private health-care provider, for allegedly
mistreating his acute diabetes. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court
in Philadelphia, contends that medical officials at the prison in Pocopson
ignored the fact that Rae-mone Aaron Carter Jr. had a history of diabetes and
neglected to seek hospital care for him until it was too late to prevent his
death. Instead, the suit alleges, Carter was given Pepto-Bismol instead of
insulin for his symptoms. One of the attorneys for Carter’s estate, which
includes his mother, Lisa M. Shelton of Lancaster, and four children, called
the way Carter was treated “a colossal failure.” “Mr. Carter would be alive
today if fundamental standards of professional medical practice were followed
by his caregivers at the Prison,” commented Michael F. Barrett, an attorney
with the law firm of Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett, & Bendesky, which filed
the suit. The complaint seeks compensatory as well as punitive damages.
Carter, 26, was a member of the large drug ring led by Coatesville resident
Phillip Dimatteo, which was broken up by state, federal, and local police in
2011. Carter pleaded guilty to drug charges connected with the ring in late
2011, and was scheduled to be sentenced in May 2012. He passed away on March
16, 2012. In the six-count complaint, his estate alleges that Carter showed
escalating symptoms of diabetic problems over a period of approximately one
week starting March 11, 2012. He died in Chester County Hospital after being
transferred there from the prison. The suit says that various
employees of PrimeCare Medical services, which operates
the health facilities at the prison, ignored the fact that he had a family
history of diabetes and delayed administering routine blood tests or seeking
hospitalization.

Children's Advocacy
Center
Erie, Pennsylvania
Cornell
June 12, 2009 Erie Times-NewsA Cornell Abraxas mental-health aide was charged with sexually assaulting
a 14-year-old resident at the center. Police said the girl, now 15, told a
counselor at the Children's Advocacy Center that Kito Dixon, 29, made
inappropriate comments to her and touched her breast April 11 as she was
getting ready for bed at the residential rehabilitation center for troubled
juveniles, at 429 W. Sixth St. Police said a security video from the hallway
outside the girl's room showed Dixon standing at her doorway for several
minutes. It also showed him entering the room but does not show what happened
inside, according to a criminal complaint. The video was at the same time as
when the girl said the incident occurred. Dixon was charged Tuesday with
institutional sexual assault, indecent assault and corruption of minors. He
has been released from the Erie County Prison on $7,500 bond. Messages left
at Cornell Abraxas were not returned Thursday.

Cornell-Abraxas
Erie
Erie County, Pennsylvania
Cornell
April 21, 2010 Erie Times-News
A former Cornell-Abraxas mental-health aide was sentenced this morning in
Erie County Court to serve six to 20 months in the Erie County Prison for
having indecent contact with a 14-year-old resident at the center. Kito
Dixon, 30, must also serve also serve six years probation and pay court
costs, Judge Ernest J. DiSantis Jr. said. The sentence in Erie County Court
came after Dixon pleaded no contest in March to charges that he had indecent
contact with a female resident at the center in April 2009, and, in a
separate case, pleaded no contest to charges that he drove his car into a yard
toward three people on June 12.

March
6, 2010 Erie Times-News
A former Cornell Abraxas mental-health aide pleaded no contest Friday in Erie
County Court to charges that he had indecent contact with a 14-year-old
resident at the center. Kito Dixon, 30, did not contest counts of indecent
assault and corruption of minors. In exchange for his plea, the prosecution
dropped a third-degree felony charge of institutional sexual assault. Cornell
Abraxas is a licensed residential facility for children and youth located at
429 W. Sixth St. As a part of the plea, Dixon agreed to undergo an assessment
by the Erie County Adult Probation sexual offender group. In a separate case,
he also pleaded no contest to three counts of simple assault. He admitted he
drove his car into a yard toward three people on June 12. The charges
together carry a maximum possible penalty of up to 15 years in prison and a
$35,000 fine. Erie County Judge John Garhart set sentencing for April 21.
Police said a girl, now 15, told a counselor at the Children's Advocacy
Center that Dixon made inappropriate comments to her and touched her breast
April 11 as she was getting ready for bed at the residential rehabilitation
center for troubled juveniles. Police said a security video from the hallway
outside the girl's room showed Dixon standing at her doorway for several
minutes. It also showed him entering the room but does not show what happened
inside, according to a criminal complaint. The video was at the same time as
when the girl said the incident occurred.

Cornell-Abraxas
Howe
Howe Township, Pennsylvania
Cornell
August 22, 2011 Erie Times-News
State police are searching for two boys who escaped this morning from a
Forest County juvenile detention facility. The boys, a 14-year-old and a
15-year-old, were last seen running into the woods near the Cornell Abraxas
Foundation in Howe Township around 4:30 a.m. They were described as black,
wearing black shirts, light-colored pants and tennis shoes.

July
7, 2008 Erie Times-NewsFour 18-year-olds were jailed over the weekend, charged with causing a
riot at a juvenile detention facility in Forest County. State police at
Tionesta, along with units from Ridgway, Kane and Clarion, were called to the
Cornell Abraxas facility in Howe Township on Saturday at about 10:30 p.m.
Police said one juvenile and three staff members were assaulted, although
none was seriously hurt. Three buildings were damaged and windows, desks,
chairs and other furniture were vandalized, with damage totaling about
$5,000, according to police. Derek Barnes, Richard Gale, Rasheed M. Seward,
all of Philadelphia, and Vernon L. High, of Chester, were each charged with
riot, institutional vandalism, criminal mischief, disorderly conduct and
corruption of minors, according to police. Police said the four 18-year-olds
incited additional juveniles to participate in the riot. The four were
arraigned and placed in Warren County Jail with bail set at $25,000 each.

June
11, 2006 The DerrickA boy escaped from the Cornell Abraxas facility Sunday morning but was
captured several hours later, said state police in
Tionesta. The 17-year-old youth fled into nearby woods after leaving the
juvenile drug and alcohol treatment facility in Howe Township, Forest County,
police said. He was found Sunday morning by staff members not far from the
facility at 59 Blue Jay Road, police said.

Cornell-Abraxas
QuincyQuincy Township, Pennsylvania
November 1, 2004 Public Opinion
A 17-year-old boy allegedly assaulted three Cornell Abraxas staff members at
9 p.m. Thursday at the treatment center in Quincy Township. The boy allegedly
punched, kicked and head-butted Leslie Fitch, 27, Chambersburg, David Black,
46, Chambersburg, and Robert Reed, 31, Gettysburg, after they attempted to
restrain him, according to police. All three staff members suffered minor
injuries, police said.

conference
Wednesday in Norristown. Greenleaf, a lawyer, did legal work for
Correctional

Physicians Services Inc., which was

awarded
a $49 million contract in 1995 to provide medical

services to
inmates at the

state's prisons. The firm paid Greenleaf, who was
chair of

the Senate Judiciary

Committee, $2,000
every other week for more than two years

as compensation for
legal

work.

In his
press release, Rovner said Greenleaf approved the

contract and
later accepted a

$20,000 campaign contribution from the
company's president.

"That's
a lie and you know it," Greenleaf said. "The state

legislature
approves no

contracts. That's the governor's office."

Plus, Greenleaf added, he had no
connection with the company

when the original

agreement
was drafted in 1990, and the only legal services

he provided
Corrections dealt

with the firm's out-of-state clients.

Rovner has called for an immediate investigation into

Greenleaf's
actions.

He said he would like to know exactly
how much the senator

received as part of his

involvement
with Corrections and as a member of the firm's

oversight
committee during

the company's sale in 2000. (The
Intelligencer)

Curran-Fromhold
PrisonPennsylvania
Prison Health Services
May 10, 2006 Philadelphia WeeklyA new federal civil rights lawsuit alleges mistreatment of a Curran-Fromhold
prison inmate that culminated in a brutal rape. Attorney Rich Ostriak of the
law firm Ostriak Birley filed the suit last week in U.S. District Court,
demanding unspecified damages on behalf of inmate Thomas Moore, who entered
the Philadelphia prison system in January 2005, awaiting trial on robbery
charges, and fought with a pair of inmates over use
of the phone on his first day there. Moore was transferred to restrictive
confinement, otherwise known as "the hole," where his complaints
about severe pain and difficulty breathing were ignored for almost three days
before he was taken to the infirmary. On June 20 he was transferred to
Frankford Hospital to receive coronary angioplasty and an arterial stent. The
suit alleges Prison Health Services failed to deliver his required heart
medications for five days after he returned to jail.

August
16, 2001
Three suicides in a month, mentally ill patients being drugged senseless,
filthy treatment rooms, staffing shortages, management systems unable to cope.
Those are just some of the medical problems two consultants have found within
the city's prison health-care system, according to secret reports obtained by
the Daily News. It is a system operated by a Tennessee conglomerate
that the city pays $25 million a year. The city's contractor, Prison
Health Services, a subsidiary of American Service Group Inc., freely admits it's losing money in Philadelphia, but insists the quality
of care has not dipped. Though the Street administration professes to
be happy with its contractor, ignorance can be bliss. On critical issues,
administration officials don't appear to be carefully supervising the private
company, in part because they have a minuscule oversight unit. The
city's contract with PHS lacks the precision tools for tight oversight.
Dr. William Patterson, a Washington psychiatrist, noted that the average
mental-health caseload has been running at 1,600 inmates, far above the
contract estimate of 1,000 inmates and far beyond the staffing level PHS set
up. Patterson also found that about 1,500 of 1,600 inmates were getting
prescribed drugs. But PHS's Newkirk conceded: "We are treating
more people than what we were staffed for. You see that in Dr. Patterson's
report. What was in the contract is what we have. That's the fact. As a
result, we probably are giving more medications than we would if we had more
staff." Among the other issues raised by
the city consultants: * Hygiene - Greifinger found the medical units at
Curran-Fromhold and the Detention Center were dirty. He found infirmary cells
with food scattered around with bloody bandages. Refrigerators contained both
food and medicine. Biohazardous waste was left uncovered. * Medication
- For all the problems with drugging mental-health patients, Greifinger found
that the half of the doses given to patients at the Detention Center were
undocumented. * Records - One reason the city was so pleased with the
expanded PHS contract was that inmates would be cared for by only one medical
unit rather than the dual system that existed when Hahnemann University
Hospital provided mental-health care. But an integrated system still
doesn't exist more than a year after PHS gained control of the entire
contract. * Testing - Only 22 percent of female inmates were tested for
sexually transmitted diseases, though prison policy and the contract require
all women to be tested. Consultant Patterson closed with a warning that
the next round of class-action lawsuits will be over improper mental-health
care for inmates. (Daily News)

August
16, 2001
When Kyle York, 20, showed up at the Philadelphia prisons, his life was in
utter shambles. After ingesting PCP on New Year's Eve last year, he'd
gone into a hallucinatory rage, shooting his mother, shooting at his father
and inflicting a grazing wound to himself. Less than three months later
he was dead. And Blake Berenbaum, the attorney hired by York's parents,
is trying to learn what happened to the troubled young man. Was he
beaten to death by prison guards? Given too many injections of sedatives by
prison physicians? Was it a combination of the two? Or did he meet his fate
by some unknown means? Prison spokesman Bob Eskind said York had been
under "four-point restraint," meaning that four guards each took a
limb. Both Eskind and Berenbaum said a PHS doctor had given York a dose
of Ativan, a sedative. Berenbaum identified the physician as Benjamin Caoile.
Put into an infirmary bed, York was still combative, Berenbaum said. At that
point Caoile left York and the guards in the room. Berenbaum said
records show that the doctor ordered the nurse to give York
"another" injection of Haldol and Benadryl, both sedatives. To
Berenbaum, that suggests there were earlier and unrecorded doses of those
drugs. When Caoile returned about 15 minutes later, York was in an
unresponsive state and emergency measures were started. York never regained
consciousness and died on March 14. (Daily News)

September
15, 2000
Jose Santiago was arrested on drug charges Sept. 13. While in police custody,
the 28-year old diabetic received three insulin shots. But after he was
transferred to prison custody on Sept. 15, his condition deteriorated and he
died Sept. 16. The medical examiner stated that the death was diabetes
related.

City
Councilman Angel Ortiz wants an investigation to take place. He said,
"Mr. Santiago was totally neglected by health services at
Curran-Fromhold. He didn't commit suicide. He was just not given medical
assistance."

Pending
in U.S. district Court is a suit filed by seven diabetics and the American
Diabetes Association against the city. They contend that the police denied
them proper care while in police custody.

Dauphin County probation officials
are looking into how the 15-year-old charged in the shooting death of Malik
Stern-Jones escaped from authorities' custody Aug. 5. Also looking into the
escape is Abraxas Youth and Family Services, in whose custody Niejea Stern
had been Aug. 5 when he escaped while at the Children's Resource Center in
Harrisburg for questioning, said Pablo Paez of the GEO Group of Florida, who
responded for Abraxas. "This was a unique and unfortunate situation
which is currently under investigation. Abraxas has had no other escapes from
secure detention or secure treatment programs," Paez said, adding the
company has had a 38-year partnership with Dauphin County. Amy Richards
Harinath, county spokeswoman, said the teen was in custody of Abraxas Youth
and Family Services personnel, with whom the county contracts for services.
"No county probation officers were present," she said. Jeffrey
Haste, chairman of the county commissioners, said anytime there is an escape,
whether from work release or other custody, the county reviews procedures and
how they occurred. Niejea Stern, charged Aug. 20 with homicide in the
shooting death Aug. 19 of Malik Stern-Jones in Hall Manor, escaped at the
Children's Resource Center, where he had been taken for an interview on an
unrelated matter, District Attorney Ed Marsico said Tuesday. Stern was
serving time in a juvenile detention center in connection with a robbery
charge, Marsico said. Haste said from what he has been told, detention
officers "did mostly everything they normally do. The kid was a persistent
kid." He said Chad Libby, county probation services director, is looking
into the matter. Marsico said Stern's legs were unshackled, but not his
wrists, when he asked to use the bathroom. He fled, eluding detention guards
and police. Haste said the escapes are among other matters scrutinized when
the county's contract with Abraxas comes up for review annually.

September
20, 2005 Patriot News
While Dauphin County Prison's food service vendor has agreed to reimburse the
county $65,000, there was no criminal intent behind the overbilling,
authorities say. The agreement reached between
Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp. and the county district attorney ends a
several-month grand jury investigation started last year into allegations of
watered-down food and overcharging. Aramark did provide adequate food as
called for in its contract with the Swatara Twp. prison, but the
investigation showed the county was billed for meals that were not made, said
District Attorney Edward M. Marsico Jr. The $65,000 is for overbilling that
occurred in 2002 and 2003, Marsico said. The investigation was spurred by
repeated inmate complaints. While there were menu changes under the current
contract, Marsico said the investigation found Aramark was providing the
required meal content. Aramark officials refused to discuss what went wrong
on their end or what steps they've taken to make sure the problem does not
reoccur

September
20, 2005 AP
Dauphin County Prison's food service vendor agreed to reimburse the county
$65,000 for overbilling during 2002 and 2003, authorities said. Officials
said there was no criminal intent behind the overbilling, and
Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp. did provide adequate food as called for in
its contract with the prison. "I'm very pleased with the amount of money
we received," District Attorney Edward M. Marsico said. "I believe
it more than covers any loss the county may have had." Masrisco said
much of the overbilling occurred because the company had charged a flat
amount for meals instead of tracking the actual ups and downs of the jail
population, and he said both prison officials and the company would keeping a
more careful eye on how many meals actually are provided. Aramark officials declined to discuss what went wrong what
steps they were taking to prevent a recurrence. "We fully cooperated
with the inquiry and consider the situation to be resolved," company
spokeswoman Sarah Jarvis said.

March
19, 2004
A 16-year old Harrisburg boy escaped from a Dauphin County juvenile detetnion
center, using a stock to disable a locked door and a walkie-talkie to create
confusion. The teenager, who then outran two
guards, remains at large following the escape at about 1 a.m. Tuesday from
the Schaffner Youth Center in Steelton.No
one was injured, according to county spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher.The teen, who was admitted Saturday on unspecified
misdemeanor charges, is not considered dangerous. His name and the nature of
the charge was not released because of his age.Two guards have been suspended without pay pending
a review of the facility, which is managed by Cornell Abraxas and holds about
65 youths, Kocher said."We did
have several unfortunate breakdowns in security," she said. (AP)

February
1, 2004
Officials are looking into whether a food service company is cutting back on
the amount of food served to prisoners. Reporter Chris Schaffer has the
exclusive story. When inmates come to the Dauphin County Prison food service
giant Aramark provides the food they eat. A few months ago county officials
began looking into the company's books, as part of a contract renewal
process. They saw documents including years of menus, instructions, and
budgets. Dauphin County Commissioner Jeff Haste: "The numbers
didn't quite match up - it appeared in our minds that we had been
over-billed" The county renewed its
contract with Aramark. In early November, the prison went into a partial
lock-down because of what the warden called "heightened tension
levels" among inmates. At that time a corrections officer told
WHP-CBS-21 that one factor leading to the increase in tension was that food
portions appeared to be smaller. Another source now says documents
suggest that for years, inmate portions have been reduced or watered down to
save money. Soon the investigation will go before a grand jury in Dauphin
County. A representative from Aramark would only say quote, "we
did receive a request for information from the Dauphin County District Attorney's
Office, and we are cooperating fully. Commissioner Haste says the
discrepancies he noticed could be accounting errors, but;
"If in fact there's criminal intent I'm going to recommend we
prosecute to the extent we can prosecute" Aramark is a world-wide
company, headquartered in Philadelphia. It provides food for sports stadiums,
hospitals and universities in addition to more than 300 correctional
facilities. (WHPTV.com)

DuPont Laboratories
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Wackenhut (Group 4)
April 30, 2008 Philadelphia Daily NewsA former postal employee serving a year's probation for stealing bars of
gold from an express-mail package was jailed yesterday for three months for
violating his probation. Edward Henderson, 22, of Dover Street near W. York Street,
ran afoul of the feds after he told his probation officer he had been fired
from his job as a security guard for Wackenhut Security. Todd Schaffer, the
probation officer, testified at a hearing yesterday that Henderson found a
SIM card for a cell phone in a storage locker at DuPont Laboratories and used
it for several months in his own cell phone. A SIM card is a tiny data card
that stores account information. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joan Burnes said
Henderson used the SIM card between May and August 2007, ringing up charges
of almost $1,750 to call his girlfriend and family members. Henderson was
charged in Common Pleas Court last August with theft by unlawful taking and
with receiving stolen property. Those charges are still pending. A condition
of Henderson's probation was that he not commit any
federal or state crimes. U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Rice was not pleased.
Last May, Rice sentenced Henderson to a year's probation for stealing 15 bars
of .9999 fine gold from an express-mail package, valued
by authorities at about $11,850. Burnes said Rice had given Henderson an
opportunity last year to set himself straight but he blew it. Burnes asked
that the judge jail Henderson for three months. Henderson admitted he had
"done a foolish thing" but said he hadn't deliberately violated his
probation. Defense attorney Maranna Meehan said she thought three months in
jail was a "bit excessive." "I'm asking for a second
opportunity for [him]," she said, adding that Henderson was supporting
his mother and his 3-year-old son. But this time, Rice was
not so understanding. "I had confidence in you, I gave you a
chance," he told Henderson. "You made a promise to me and you broke
it." The judge was just getting warmed up. "You just don't get it.
I think you just thought you could get away with it because you're wearing a
uniform," Rice said, his voice rising a few
decibels. Rice also ordered Henderson to make restitution of $1,750 to DuPont
Labs. Rice ordered Henderson to be taken into custody immediately.

Elizabeth Township
June 22, 2007 Pittsburgh Tribune-ReviewA former Elizabeth Township district judge is about to embark on a new
venture -- as a blogging federal prisoner. Ernest Marraccini, 62, was
sentenced Thursday to 16 months in a yet-to-be-determined federal prison and
ordered to pay a $15,000 fine. Marraccini pleaded guilty in March to one
count of obstructing justice for coaching a witness to lie to a grand jury.
As he left the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Alan N. Bloch, Marraccini
thanked his supporters and promised to post a diary online from prison --
even if he has to mail the daily entry to a friend. Federal prisoners are not
typically given access to the Internet. "I've already found someone
who's agreed to do it," said Marraccini, who will remain free on bond
until he is told where to report. Marraccini obstructed the investigation of
former Allegheny County Chief Deputy Sheriff Dennis Skosnik. Skosnik was
sentenced last year to five years in prison on a variety of charges,
including taking bribes to promote the construction of a private jail
facility at Swiss Alpine Village -- the Route 48 shopping center where
Marraccini's office was located. In 2001, Gary McDermott, of Stowe, paid for
a trip to the Bahamas for Marraccini and a friend. In exchange, Marraccini
spoke favorably about the jail facility at public meetings, prosecutors said.
Marraccini later tried to get McDermott -- an FBI informant -- to tell the
grand jury that he was repaid for the trip.

February
1, 2007 Tribune-Review
A former district judge said Wednesday he reluctantly agreed to plead guilty
to obstructing a federal corruption investigation of the Allegheny County
Sheriff's Office. "People who are innocent frequently believe that they
must take the 'percentage play' because they have a lot to lose if the jury
finds them guilty," said Ernest L. Marraccini, an Elizabeth Township
district judge from 1992 until he resigned in December. Marraccini, 62, was
charged Tuesday with obstruction of justice in connection with an investigation
into former Chief Deputy Sheriff Dennis Skosnik, who pleaded guilty last year
to taking bribes to promote the construction of a private jail in the
shopping center where Marraccini's office was located. Prosecutors allege
Marraccini got an all-expense-paid trip for two to the Bahamas in 2001 from
the person trying to build the private jail. Investigators said Marraccini
tried to get a witness to lie in 2005 to a federal grand jury looking into
the trip. Marraccini's attorney, Victor H. Pribanic, said that Marraccini was
given the trip by former sheriff's deputy Gary McDermott, of Stowe, and that
it was McDermott his client later tried to influence. McDermott was
identified in 2005 as an informant in the federal probe of the planned
facility at Swiss Alpine Village, a shopping center on Route 48. Skosnik, 55,
a friend of McDermott's, pleaded guilty in June to related bribery, witness
tampering and other charges. He is serving a five-year sentence in a federal
prison in West Virginia. Pribanic said the Bahamas trip "was not a
quid-pro-quo thing. I think it was more like a gift in gratitude for things
(Marraccini) had already done." Marraccini, who said he was a grocery
bagger at his cousin's store in Elizabeth Borough before successfully running
for district judge in 1992, spoke in favor of the alternative inmate facility
at public meetings and elsewhere, Pribanic said. Pribanic claimed McDermott
repeatedly approached Marraccini to get him to fix cases and accept bribes,
but Marraccini rebuffed him. The attorney said he hoped U.S. District Judge
Alan N. Bloch would consider that at the plea hearing, scheduled for March
15. McDermott did not return calls for comment. U.S. Attorney Mary Beth
Buchanan declined to comment on the case. Reached at home yesterday, Marraccini
said he and a longtime male friend who lives with him went on the trip
together. He suggested that the fact that he is gay might have played a role
in triggering the investigation. "There are some people who have a very
difficult time simply accepting gay people no matter what they do,"
Marraccini said. The state Court of Judicial Discipline reprimanded
Marraccini in October after he was accused of calling some defendants
"morons" when they hesitated to leave the court after he summarily
dismissed their traffic cases. He resigned two months later. Marraccini said
he was "sad" to no longer work as a district judge. He joked that
he is thinking of writing his memoirs. "With any luck, I'll get to go on
'Oprah' and cry, I'll get to be on 'The View' and insult somebody famous, then maybe Jay Leno will call me a name. And with any luck
I'll get rich and become a celebrity ... and turn this lemon into
lemonade," he said.

Erie County Jail
Erie, PA
Prison Health ServicesJuly
19, 2005 Red Nova
Erie County must soon come up with another $311,877 to pay 2004 medical
expenses at the Erie County Prison. Warden James Veshecco said medical
costs have been rising partly because the number of inmates has been
increasing. The average population was 705 in 2004, compared with 676 in
2003. The $311,877 will be on top of the regular premium of $1.3
million already paid in 2004, he said. Veshecco said the prison is
receiving more inmates who need mental health treatment and related
prescriptions. There are also more women, some of whom are pregnant.
The county has contracted with Prison Health Services of Brentwood, Tenn.,
since 1999 to provide all medical care and pharmaceutical costs at the
prison. Because of the rising costs, the county in recent years agreed to
a contract that set limits on the amount that the insurance company would pay
for inmates who go to hospitals and other facilities and for pharmaceutical
products. The prison must pay any amount above that. In 2003, the
premium was $1.2 million and the county had to pay an additional $60,000 for
exceeding the cap. In 2004, the prison once again exceeded the caps and had
to pay $207,365 more for off-site visits and $104,512 more for pharmaceutical
products, totaling $311,877. The premium to PHS has been increased to
nearly $1.5 million for 2005, exclusive of the money owed if the caps are
exceeded.

Franklin County JailPennsylvania
EMSA/Prison Health Services
EMSA was warned that it -- not taxpayers-- must pay any legal damages that
might be awarded in connection with the death of an inmate last month.
(Columbus Dispatch, Oct.5, 2000)

Inmate,
Rocky Eickstadt, dies of complications from diabetes. Jail records show he
requested medical help not knowing he was diabetic, complaining of problems
and did not see a jail nurse for eighteen days. Family is suing. Three
lawsuits are pending against EMSA and one against CMS in Franklin County
Common Pleas Court on other issues. (Columbus Dispatch, Oct.5, 2000)

EMSA
replaces correctional medical services after CMS was repeatedly faulted by
Franklin County officials for being short staffed. Commissioners warned EMSA
that poor service would not be tolerated after national media reports linking
the company to suits and improper care. (Columbus Dispatch, Oct. 5, 2000)

CONCORD >> Two recent
suicides at Delaware County’s Prison have the families of inmates pleading
for information about their loved ones deaths and threatening legal action
against the county. On May 26, a 35-year-old woman with a history of mental
illness was found dead in her cell at the Delaware County prison, hanging by
her bra from a vent on the wall. Janene Wallace had been in the Concord
facility for nearly three months on charges she had violated her probation
linked to a 2013 arrest for terroristic threats and related offenses. On July
5, Richard Dandrea, a 46-year-old employee at the Sunoco refinery in Marcus
Hook, hung himself with a rope from a laundry bag. Dandrea also had a history
of psychological issues. “These events raise serious question as to the
adequacy of the policies, procedures and guidelines that the prison is
utilizing when dealing with inmates with mental health issues,”
Philadelphia-based Kline & Specter attorney David Inscho said Friday
about the two prison suicides. He confirmed Friday he had been retained by
both victims’ families and lawsuits are pending his law firm’s review of the
cases. “A serious investigation is warranted to determine whether or not
those guidelines in place are adequate and the training of their personnel is
adequate.” Prison and county officials were tightlipped last week because of
the potential wrongful death lawsuits. Prison Superintendent John Reilly did
not respond to several requests for comment; prison board President John
Hosier declined comment. “It’s a concern to county council,” Delaware County
Council Chairman Mario Civera Jr. said last week, before the county released
a blanket statement declining comment on both incidents. “Anytime these types
of incidents happen we have to be concerned about it.” Civera said county council
plans to discuss the incidents with the prison board and Reilly, but was
unclear what type of action might be taken. In the meantime, both families
are desperately searching for answers. “We want to change the system. We
don’t want this to happen again,“ said Janene’s
mother, Susanne. The George W. Hill Correctional Facility, a 1,883-bed
capacity jail, is the only privately run correctional facility in the state.
It has 383 security staffers, 24 administrators, and 83 treatment staff.
Delaware County’s prison is the largest operated by CEC, a West Caldwell,
N.J.-based correctional facility management company that offers re-entry
treatment and educational services for inmates. CEC officially took over the
facility in January 2008 when GEO Inc. suddenly declined to renew its
contract with the county. Delaware County paid CEC $136.3 million from 2012
to 2014 to operate the prison. CEC’s contract was not immediately available
and a Right-to-Know request was submitted to the county on July 7. The county
responded with a letter stating any request made related to the prison must
go through the county’s Prison Board of Inspectors because it’s a “separate
legal entity.” Some say CEC’s contract with the county ends this year. No one
from the county or CEC confirmed the contract’s expiration. In the wake of
the suicides CEC issued a statement saying it took the matter “very
seriously” and “appropriate actions” were talen after an investigation. It
did not elaborate. Records at the Delaware County medical examiner’s office
indicate six suicides on file dating back to 2009. A record search, according
to a representative from the office, showed no suicides on record from 2005
to 2009. The Daily Times reported a suicide in 2007, making the most recent
the seventh at the facility in 10 years. Dandrea, formerly of Aston and
previoulsy of Galeton, Pa., in Potter County, was jailed for failing to pay
child support in June. He was sentenced to serve six months at the facility.
It was his second stint in the Delco prison. His first incarceration was for
violating a protection from abuse order. He underwent a psychological
evaluation in 2014 at the prison and was kept in a single cell in the men’s
unit at George W. Hill. Dandrea had a history of gambling, alcohol addiction
and, according to court records, was in the process of getting a divorce. “He
was a hardworking guy who had a problem and needed help,” Inscho said,
speaking on behalf of Dandrea’s family. “That’s why he was there. He needed
help with addiction issues, not someone who had a criminal record.” He was a
member of Galeton Moose, Galeton Moose VFW, and a member of the American
Legion. He’s survived by his wife, Gwen, sons Richard and Anthony, and was
one of seven siblings. Wallace’s mother, Susanne, recalled her daughter
exhibiting signs of a mental disorder that spiraled out of control, alleging
she was “abandoned” in a small cell in Delaware County’s prison for 10 weeks
before her suicide. Janene Wallace spent nearly three months isolated in the
8-by-10-foot cell. She tied her bra around the slats of the vents and was
said to have blocked the only window looking into the cell with her mattress.
The family believes proper monitoring and treatment could have saved her life
and alleges prison personnel lack the proper training to deal with mental
illnesses. Her autopsy report, provided by the family’s attorney, describes
Janene as a thin female at 5 feet, 2 inches tall, weighing 97 pounds. It
includes a synopsis of prison guards’ accounts of the incident. She was last
seen alive at 4:30 a.m. on May 26 during “routine checks.” She was discovered
hanging in her cell an hour later, taken down from the vent and CPR was
unsuccessfully performed. One of two air vents was covered with feminine
napkins, according to the report. Her mother attributes that to her paranoia,
saying Wallace always believed she was being watched. “I just feel like at
George W. Hill she felt she was abandoned,“ Susanne
Wallace said. Janene Wallace graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1988.
She seemed to have a normal childhood filled with Girl Scouts, sports,
friends, and indecisiveness about a career path before ultimately enrolling
at Bloomsburg University to study graphic design. “She seemed happy enough in
high school,” Susanne said and at one point recalled telling her daughter,
“You need to figure out what your role is on this earth.” Wallace never
finished at Bloomsburg, and after dropping out spent time working part-time
jobs until money got tight. Then she and her boyfriend moved back to thsi area
from Allentown before breaking up. “From that moment on it was pretty
difficult,” Susanne said, describing her daughter as “resistant” about
seeking help. “I think that’s when the depression started. She couldn’t
figure out what she wanted to do.” According to Susanne, Janene Wallace was
taking small doses of antidepressant and anxiety medication. She believed her
daughter had a more serious mental illness, but she was never diagnosed.
Susanne said she would come home to find sheets covering electronics, and
Janene would tell her and her husband that the car’s GPS and computers were
bugged. “She thought someone was watching her in every room of the house,”
she said. Wallace had a criminal history prior to her June 2013 arrest for
terroristic threats. Two of those arrests occurred in Upper Darby. According
to Upper Darby Police Superintendent Mike Chitwood, she was arrested for DUI
on Feb. 20, 2011, and was found to be in possession of several knives. She
was arrested again on Oct. 23, 2012, for threats she made over the phone to
the same victim that would later be the target of her terroristic threats in
June 2013. Wallace’s second arrest for death threats resulted in charges of
simple assault and terroristic threats. The simple assault charge would later
be dismissed. Before her probation violation, in the June 2013 case, Wallace
pleaded guilty to charges of terroristic threats with the intent to terrorize
another and was released to an outpatient facility, ordered to have no
contact with the victims, and undergo probation supervision and mental
evaluations. “Despite her family’s persistent efforts to attempt to get her
access to the psychological care that she desperately needed, she was left
with no help from the prison authorities,” Inscho said. A sentencing had been
set for June 29 in Common Pleas Judge James Bradley’s court. Her probation
monitoring was terminated and sentencing date cancelled prior to her suicide.
“It was a very sad situation for Janene,” said Media criminal defense
attorney Scott Kramer, who represented Wallace before her death. “She needed
a lot of help and the problem in the prison was they weren’t giving her help
whatsoever.” Kramer called her the “poster child for mental health rights.”
According to Inscho, CEC’s insurance company denied copies of video
surveillance outside of Janene’s cell and has failed to respond to other
document requests. CEC declined to comment on those requests. “I can’t say
one way or the other what’s unusual or what is not,” Inscho said about the
prison’s actions. “Do I think the prison owes these family
an explanation about what happened to their daughter? I think they do. I
don’t think they should say to a family, you need to sue us to get answers
about their daughter.” Wallace’s mother is haunted by questions. “We can’t go
backwards, but I hope that it doesn’t repeat itself,” Susanne said. It’s
unknown if Inscho will file any kind of legal action against the county,
prison or CEC. “We’re going to look closely at everything,” Inscho said.

There is exactly one privately
operated prison in Pennsylvania. It just happens to be located right here in
Delaware County. It’s been 20 years since Delaware County Council embarked on
a new path when it comes to incarceration, hiring Wackenhut Corrections Corp.
to operate the aging Delaware County Prison in Concord. There’s no question
the decision was a financial winner for the county. Not only did it realize
substantial savings in operation of the facility, the private outfit agreed
to build a new prison to replace the decrepit jail – at a tidy savings of
more than $30 million. But from the outset, complaints about operations at
the jail, as well as the care and treatment of prisoners, have persisted.
Wackenhut is long gone, replaced first by the Wackenhut offshoot Geo Group
Inc. in 2008 and then a year later by the New Jersey firm Community Education
Centers Inc. The companies running Delco’s jail have changed. And the name of
the prison also has a new moniker, formally known as the George W. Hill
Correction Facility, in honor of the longtime warden and Springfield police
chief. One thing has remained constant. Complaints about the prison persist.
Those concerns are back in the headlines as the county investigates two
recent inmate suicides at the prison. Janene Wallace, 35, of Upper Darby, was
found hanging by her bra from a vent in her cell on May 27. On July 4 a
46-year-old Aston man hanged himself. His identity has not been released. The
deaths mark the fifth and sixth suicides at the prison under CEC’s watch.
That’s not a good trend. Neither is the muted reaction by CEC and county
officials in the wake of the suicides. A statement released by county council
confirmed the two suicides, adding they were being investigated by the
District Attorney’s office, the Medical Examiner’s offices, prison officials
and CEC. “It’s a concern to county council,” said Delaware County Council
Chairman Mario Civera. “Anytime these types of incidents happen, we have to
be concerned about it.” No one else is saying much. The prison superintendent
is not responding to requests for comment. The Delaware County Prison Board,
appointed by county council to oversee operations at the prison, declined
comment. Part of that is to be expected in light of the threat of legal
action against the county by the family of Janene Wallace. It is believed
that a corrections officer was terminated in the wake of Wallace’s death, but
no one is willing to confirm that. A spokesman for CEC said that the company
takes “any incident” at their facilities “very seriously.” “We are proud of
our management at George W. Hill and continue to provide the best service to
Delaware County in the operation of its county jail facility.” They should.
Delaware County paid it $136.3 million to run the prison from 2012 to 2014.
That’s a lot of public money. The details of the current contract have not
been made available. The Daily Times has filed a Right-To-Know request with
the county for details on the latest contract with CEC. That’s because the
public has a right to know how their money is being spent. In the case of CEC
and the George W. Hill Correctional Facility, it’s one of the county’s
biggest budget items. Maybe more importantly, the family of
Janene Wallace deserve to know what happened to their loved one. We’d
like to think county officials, the brass at the county prison and CEC agree.
At attorney for the Wallace family isn’t so sure. David Inscho, of the
Philadelphia firm Kline & Specter, indicates CEC’s insurance company has
balked at several requests. Part of that is part and parcel of the legal
wrangling that looms over this case. But Inscho said something else we found
interesting. “Do I think the prison owes this family an explanation about what
happened to their daughter?” Inscho said. “I think they do. I don’t think
they should say to a family you need to sue to get answers about their
daughter.” We hope that information is forthcoming, from all parties
involved. The operation of the 1,883-bed correctional facility, and the
actions of its 383 security staffers, 24 administrators and 83 treatment
staff, is a huge public concern in Delaware County. The public needs to know
what kind of results they are getting for the $136 million it is spending to
keep offenders sent there by the courts. And it shouldn’t have to go to court
themselves to find out.Jan 5, 2014 The Pennsylvania
Record

A former suburban Philadelphia
prison inmate who claims she was forced to live in “inhumane, barbaric
conditions,” and suffered daily pain for a period of months due to a failure
to get her proper medical care while behind bars has filed a federal civil
rights complaint against those responsible for her care. Bridget Simonds, of
Secane, Pa., filed suit Dec. 24 at the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
against Delaware County, Correctional Medical Associates Inc., Community
Education Centers Inc. and others over the poor treatment she alleges she
received in late 2011. The plaintiff says she suffered a work related injury
while on work release from the Delaware County Prison on Dec. 28 of that
year. At the hospital, doctors diagnosed Simonds with a comminuted distal
radial fracture, after which she was taken to the George Hill Correctional
Facility with instructions to undergo an orthopedic evaluation in three days.
She was never given such an evaluation, however, but was instead held for two
additional months without a further doctor’s consultation or a cast to
stabilize her injury, the lawsuit states. The plaintiff filed two separate
grievances during this time, reminding the prison of her medical needs, but
they were ignored, Simonds claims in her lawsuit. The defendants instead
“continued to deny plaintiff treatment and failed to transport her to the
hospital or an orthopedic surgeon for follow up care,” the complaint states.
“Despite Plaintiff’s continued requests, the defendants intentionally,
maliciously, and/or recklessly failed to provide plaintiff with the needed
medical care during the course of her incarceration.” As a result of the
defendants actions, or rather inactions, Simonds was “forced to suffer severe
and constant pain, and was denied necessary medical devices and/or treatment,
resulting in extreme indignity, humiliation, emotional distress, as well as severe
physical discomfort, and a serious decline in her medical condition,” the
lawsuit states. By the time Simonds was released from prison in late February
2012, the suit claims, her bones had improperly set, leading to what the
plaintiff says was a severe exacerbation of her initial injury, causing
permanent nerve damage and paralysis of her right, long finger. On March 7,
2012, Simonds was forced to undergo an open reduction, internal fixation
surgery with median nerve release and placement of plates and screws,
according to the complaint. As a result of the defendants’ combined
negligence, Simonds was forced to spend money on medical care, she suffered
from physical injury and emotional distress, and she incurred other financial
expenses and losses. The additional defendants named in the complaint are Dr.
Phillips, the head of the medical department at the George Hill Correctional
Facility, Corrections Officers Dixon and Stacey, and a Jane Doe medical staff
officer. There is also an additional John Doe corrections officer named in
the complaint. The first names of the three aforementioned defendants are not
known at this time. The complaint contains counts of inadequate medical care,
custom and policy of unconstitutional conduct, and negligence. The plaintiff
seeks unspecified compensatory damages, plus interest, costs, attorney’s fees
and other relief. Simonds is being represented by Philadelphia attorney
Thomas Bruno, II, of the firm Abramson & Denenberg P.C. The federal case
number is 2:13-cv-07565-TON.

November 27, 2013
correctionsone.com

THORNBURY — The allegations are
vivid: African American inmates placed for hours at a time in a "dirty
cell" strewn with rotten food, human feces, and urine. White guards
"waterboarding" black prisoners with pepper spray until they vomit.
K-9 officers letting "their dogs urinate on the belongings and
bedding" of black inmates. The claims are spelled out in lawsuits filed
by two guards at Delaware County's prison, the George Hill Correctional
Facility in Thornbury. The private company that runs the prison denies the
accusations, and a lawyer for the county prison board called them
"sensational" and noted they had not been substantiated. But the
charges, leveled in complaints filed this fall, represent the latest
criticisms of the 1,883-bed prison and its operator, Community Education
Centers of New Jersey. Concerns over conditions for inmates and workers
sparked a protest in recent weeks. On Friday, a group of human rights
advocates held an open meeting in which they hoped to share their concerns
with county and prison officials. No representative of the county or the
prison attended. "The ultimate goal is to establish a citizens' advisory
committee," said the Rev. Keith Collins, who heads the group.
"Right now, everything is shrouded." Collins, of the Church of the
Overcomer in Chester, said the agenda was to include abuse of prisoners,
overcrowding, lack of effective reentry programs, lack of opportunity for
religious services, and treatment of visitors. Community Education Center,
which the county hired in 2009 to run the jail, declined to discuss the
allegations. "While the company does not comment on pending litigation
or complaints such as these," spokesman Christopher Greeder wrote in an
e-mailed statement, "we do strenuously deny these allegations and are
confident these matters will be dealt with appropriately in due course."
This is not the first time the company has come under fire. In 2010, at least
seven inmates were mistakenly released from the Thornbury jail. In New
Jersey, its halfway houses have drawn scrutiny from state officials.
Residents at its Philadelphia halfway house won a class-action lawsuit after
being denied adequate medical care there. The George Hill guards - Angelina
Blocker of Philadelphia and Silver Black of Lansdowne - are suing for
wrongful termination, breach of contract, harassment, and other related
complaints. Neither Blocker nor Black was available for comment, according to
their lawyer, Stewart C. Crawford Jr. He said he stood behind every
allegation in the lawsuits. "Our investigation has also produced a
number of independent sources to support these allegations," he said.
Calls to prison superintendent John A. Reilly Jr. were referred to Robert
DiOrio, solicitor for the Delaware County Board of Prison Inspectors, which
is responsible for administration of the jail. DiOrio said he had not heard
of the abuse allegations in the lawsuits. "They are certainly
sensational," DiOrio said of the allegations. "That doesn't mean they
are true." Marianne Grace, the county's executive director, said during
her impromptu tours of the prison she had not seen any evidence of the claims
made in the lawsuits. The 2013 budget for the prison is $43 million - 13
percent of the county's overall budget. By contrast, Montgomery County, which
has a capacity of 2,080 beds, budgets $30 million; York County, with a
capacity of 2,694, budgets $41 million. Blocker was fired in June 2012 for
allegedly exaggerating an incident report. In 2007, a racially charged photo of
her with a noose around her head was found in a union mailbox. Blocker is
African American. Silver Black, who is also African American, was fired March
26, 2012, for allegedly being late. During her nearly eight-year tenure at
the prison, Black had been written up three times for lateness - twice while
under the protection of the Federal Family Medical Leave Act, according to
the lawsuit. The two suits charge that African American guards are
discriminated against and held to different standards than their white
coworkers. They cite an alleged 50 percent drop in the number of black
correctional officers at the prison. They also contend that black guards
receive a disproportionate number of write-ups and that
black guards who take and pass tests to become supervisors are
disqualified while white officers receive the questions in advance. Collins
said he was outraged at the abuse and discrimination allegations in the
lawsuit and by what he has heard from prisoners. McClatchy-Tribune News
Service "This needs to stop," he said. "It's a human rights
issue."

April
15, 2011 Delco Times
Delaware County Deputy District Attorney James Mattera could soon be moving
to the county owned George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Thornton, where
he would oversee the records department as a first assistant superintendent.
The prison saw a string of embarrassing accidental releases last year,
resulting in public admonishments from elected officials and the hiring of a
prison specialist to help shore up deficiencies. Delaware County Board of
Prison Inspectors Solicitor Bob DiOrio said Mattera would be an employee of
the privately owned management company that oversees the prison, Community
Education Centers Inc. County council Chairman Jack Whelan said there had
been some technological improvements made at the prison, but having Mattera
as the human element overseeing the operation would also be a benefit. He
added that the move could result in a net savings to the county, as Mattera’s
replacement at the district attorney’s office would likely earn less than his
current $83,000 salary.

February
14, 2011 Delco Times
Three Rastafarians who sued the county-owned prison and its management
company in August for gender, racial and religious discrimination recently
filed an amended and more narrow complaint in
federal court. “The new complaint drops some claims and focuses the case
where I think the problem really lies,” said Brian Appel, of the firm Choi
and Associates P.C. “I’ve taken out any kind of sex discrimination or gender
discrimination, taken out any issues of race.” Appel represents Nigel
LeBlanc, Eugene Briggs and Zayid Bolds, three professed followers of the
Rastafari movement and former prison guards at the George W. Hill
Correctional Facility in Thornbury. The trio originally alleged in a filing
in Eastern Pennsylvania District Court that religious, sexual and racial
discrimination led to their terminations in early 2009. According to the suit
against the prison and its private, for-profit management company, Community
Education Centers, Rastafarians are prohibited from cutting the hair on their
head, including facial hair. That prohibition conflicted with the male
grooming policy for CEC, which fired all three men shortly after taking over
operations at the prison in January 2009. Christopher Greeder, spokesman for
CEC, said he was unable to comment on ongoing litigation. Community Education
Centers’ grooming policy states male guards must be clean shaven, have neatly
combed hair and that hair length “shall not extend beyond the collar,” though
the suit noted the policy does not specifically say hair must be cut to that
length. Female guards with long hair are instructed to pull it up into a bun.
According to the suit, each of the former guards did put their dreadlocks
into buns pulled tight against the top of their heads, “professionally tied
into styles that were neat and clean.” But the former guards said they were
constantly harassed for their hairstyles and that working conditions quickly
eroded after each began following the Rastafari movement.

December
15, 2010 Philadelphia InquirerTwo Delaware County jail employees have been suspended after a prisoner
was prematurely released last week when they failed to finish reading the
bail conditions for the inmate, officials said. At least seven inmates at the
George Hill Correctional Facility in Thornbury Township have been mistakenly
released this year through paperwork errors or confusion over identities.
Officials have acknowledged problems with procedures and paperwork.
Christianus Felten, 42, of Upper Darby, is again behind bars after spending a
night out. Felten, in jail awaiting trial in an alleged burglary, was
approved for electronic home-monitoring after his bail was reduced at a
preliminary hearing Dec. 7, according to Robert DiOrio, solicitor for the
Delaware County Prison Board. Felten was freed when two jail employees - an
intake clerk and a sergeant - did not confirm his eligibility for release
with the bail office and released Felten before final approval for
home-monitoring, according to officials. "That portion of the paperwork
was not read by the officials on duty," said DiOrio.

December
14, 2010 Delco Times
For the seventh time this year, a prisoner at Delaware County prison was
released prematurely. Alleged burglar Christianus E. Felten 42, of Upper
Darby, was back behind bars within 15 hours after his untimely release Dec.
7, according to officials. But the slipup has prison board officials once
again looking into intake and release procedures at the county jail. “I’m
certain the prison board will review this matter, as far as the procedures
that were not followed, in an effort to avoid similar circumstances in the
future,” said Prison Board Solicitor Robert DiOrio. Felten was arrested Nov.
13 after allegedly breaking into a home on Millbank Road in Upper Darby. He
was arrested again a day later after briefly escaping from a constable as he
was being loaded into a prison van. At his preliminary hearing Dec. 6,
Felten’s bail, originally set at 10 percent of $50,000, was reduced to
unsecured bail with the condition the he be approved for electronic home
monitoring before being released. That’s where officials said the mix-up
occurred. The record’s clerk received the paperwork on Felten’s bail
reduction, but missed the part about the electronic home monitoring. Felten
was released at 9 p.m. Tuesday. The following day, the person with whom
Felten was staying called to report that the electronic home monitoring had
not been set up and prison officials realized what had occurred and Felten
was back in jail by 12:30 p.m., according to officials. Six other prisoners,
including a murder suspect, were accidentally released in recent months. All
have been recaptured.

October
7, 2010 Delco Times
Confusion over a prisoner’s status led to another early release at the George
W. Hill Correctional Facility in Thornbury over the weekend, though it was of
a different kind than plagued the prison over the summer. Cyril Devine, 49,
of Downingtown, a former oil company executive sentenced to prison in August
for child pornography, was set free after serving a weekend at the prison
this month. But Devine, who earlier this year pleaded guilty to six counts of
possession of child pornography and one count of criminal use of a communication
facility, was supposed to serve at least two months. Delaware County Court of
Common Pleas Judge James Bradley sentenced Devine to two to six months imprisonment beginning Oct. 1, plus seven years
probation. But prison Solicitor Robert DiOrio said Devine showed up at the
prison Friday, Sept. 10, with a probation and parole form indicating he was
supposed to begin serving weekend sentences. DiOrio said Devine was admitted
as a weekender, despite a lack of any sentencing paperwork at the prison, and
released the following Sunday. He showed up again on Oct. 1 and was again
released the following Sunday. The prison — now in receipt of his actual
paperwork from the courts — discovered the discrepancy and recaptured him
Tuesday, said DiOrio. The sentencing sheet indicated Devine was to be granted
“immediate nonstationary work release,” but no rules or regulations indicated
he was to serve weekend sentences.

September
15, 2010 Delco News
Delaware County Council recently called for a complete investigation into the
unauthorized release of three prisoners from the county prison since June 14.
Two of the inmates are back in custody and federal marshals are looking for
the third. Significant changes in prison release procedures are in place at
the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Concord Township, and additional
safeguards are being formulated as part of an investigation. “Public safety
is county council's top priority and we won't tolerate mistakes when it comes
to our criminal justice system and the safety of our residents,” said County
Council Chair Jack Whelan. “We have asked for a full investigation of the
inmate release procedure. A stricter, more fail-safe policy is already in
place with more changes to come as the investigation continues.” Whelan said
several county employees were involved in the prison incidents. One was fired
and the others disciplined. The George Hill facility, which is the fifth
largest county prison in the state, is operated by Community Education
Centers Inc., a New Jersey-based company that has run the prison since
January 2009. John Reilly, Jr. oversees CEC's operations for the county. He
detailed three procedural changes that have been instituted since June 15 and
said he has also launched a review of the clerical records process to
streamline and strengthen paperwork procedures.

September
3, 2010 Philadelphia Daily News
It's happened again at the Delaware County prison. Yet another inmate was
accidentally released this week from the George W. Hill Correctional Facility,
county officials confirmed yesterday, making for the sixth such incident
there in recent months. Gary Tagland, 21, was discharged Tuesday from the
prison - even though he was supposed to be transported back to a New Jersey
state prison, where he was doing five years for a robbery in Pennsauken.
"I don't know what happened. The prison is going to have to answer that
question," said Deputy District Attorney Daniel McDevitt. He said a fax
sent to the prison last month should have prevented "this very thing
from happening." Tagland, of Cherry Hill, was released the same day that
county officials announced they were tightening procedures at the privately
run prison in Thornton following the accidental release of five inmates -
including an alleged killer from Germantown - in recent months. "We have
asked for a full investigation of the inmate-release procedure," County
Council Chairman Jack Whelan said in a statement Monday. "A stricter,
more fail-safe policy is already in place with more changes to come as the
investigation continues." The prison, operated for about $43 million a
year by New Jersey-based Community Education Centers, disclosed last week
that David Wilson, who was convicted of a firearms offense, and Ateia Polk,
who is facing robbery and assault charges, had walked out of the prison due
to clerical errors. In June, murder suspect Taaqi Brown, 22, was released by
mistake. He surrendered the next day. Wilson hasn't been apprehended. The
circumstances of the other two recent mistaken releases were unclear but
Prison Superintendent John Reilly Jr., the county official who monitors CEC's
performance, said they are back in custody. McDevitt said Tagland was brought
to Delaware County from a New Jersey state prison last month to face
drug-paraphernalia and motor-vehicle charges from a Springfield arrest last
year. He pleaded guilty to the drug charge. "At that point, our case is
closed and he should have been returned to New Jersey," he said. Tagland
was apparently re-arrested Wednesday by New Jersey authorities after he
failed to turn himself in, McDevitt said. It was unclear yesterday what led
to the latest error. Reilly said last week that the company has had problems
handling and interpreting incoming documents. But in Tagland's case, there
should have been no doubt about his status, because the D.A.'s office had
faxed a notice to the prison before his arrival, McDevitt said: "It was
supposed to be a fail-safe to let the prison know that the guy shouldn't be
let go." State Rep. Stephen Barrar, who represents portions of Delaware
and Chester counties, said last week he plans to introduce legislation
requiring public notification of escapes and accidental discharges. CEC said
yesterday that it is "reviewing and rapidly implementing major changes."

September
1, 2010 Delco Times
Delaware County Council Tuesday called for a complete investigation into the
unauthorized release of three prisoners from the county prison since June 14.
Two of the inmates are back in custody and federal marshals are looking for
the third. Significant changes in prison-release procedures are in place at
the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Thornbury, and additional
safeguards are being formulated as part of an investigation into the
inmate-release process. “Public safety is county council’s top priority and
we won’t tolerate mistakes when it comes to our criminal justice system and
the safety of our residents,” said council Chairman Jack Whelan. “We have
asked for a full investigation of the inmate-release procedure. A stricter,
more fail-safe policy is already in place with more changes to come as the
investigation continues.” Whelan said several county employees were involved
in the incidents. One was fired and the others were disciplined. “And quite
frankly, they should have been,” Whelan said. “I can expect that you are not
going to see anything like this in the future.” The prison, which is the
fifth-largest county prison in the state, is operated by Community Education
Centers Inc., a New Jersey-based company that has run the facility since
January 2009. Prison Superintendent John A. Reilly Jr. detailed three
procedural changes that have been instituted since June 15 and said he has
also launched a review of the clerical-records process to streamline and
strengthen the paperwork procedures at all levels.

August
31, 2010 Philadelphia InquirerKelly DeLuca was talking on the cell-block pay phone after 8 p.m. at the
Delaware County prison when she got unexpected news: She could go home.
"I'm not supposed to go home," DeLuca said she told the guard. It
was May 6, and she had nine days of an 18-day sentence left to serve for
violating probation on a criminal-trespass charge. "Not my . . .
problem," came the response, said the 43-year-old Havertown mother, who
says she was told to hang up, pack up, and get ready to be discharged in time
to catch the 9:40 p.m. SEPTA bus to Chester. She said she was not allowed to
make any calls and was given two bus tokens. An hour later, DeLuca, a
well-educated woman whose life spiraled downward because of alcohol, found
herself standing on a Chester street corner, dressed in sweatpants and blue
fuzzy slippers, with no cash and one token left. DeLuca is at least the
fourth prisoner in recent months to be mistakenly released from the state's only privately run county prison - the George W.
Hill Correctional Facility. "It is obviously very embarrassing and
completely unacceptable," County Councilman Andy Lewis said Monday.
Until hearing from a reporter about the DeLuca case, he had been aware only
of three others, including a murder suspect who turned himself in. Two are
still at large, one convicted of firearms violations, the other charged with
robbery. "We have to make sure it does not happen again," Lewis
said. Community Education Centers Inc. of West Caldwell, N.J., which has
operated the county prison since January 2009, has attributed the three
previous mistaken releases, all since June, to paperwork errors. "The
company is working very closely with the county to review its policies and
procedures," Christopher Greeder, a spokesman for CEC, said Monday. He
said he was not aware of DeLuca's mistaken release. County Executive Marianne
Grace said Friday that the County Council would conduct an investigation and
review all policies and procedures surrounding prison releases. The Thornbury
Township facility has a budget of $44 million from the county and houses
about 1,800 inmates. The District Attorney's Office said Friday that its
criminal investigation division also would investigate mistaken releases.
DeLuca's attorney, Robert C. Keller of Havertown, confirmed his client was
mistakenly released early.

August
28, 2010 Philadelphia Inquirer
The Delaware County executive vowed Friday to have a "serious
discussion" of ways to improve security at the county prison, from which
three inmates were mistakenly released this summer. Marianne Grace said the
county was calling for a complete investigation and review of all policies
and procedures surrounding prison releases. "Public safety is our number-one
priority," Grace said. She said that on Monday, she would set up a
meeting between prison and county officials to address the issue, but added
that no written report was likely to be made public. Grace called
inmate-release procedures a "multilayer process that is complex"
and involves a number of departments, including the county's Office of
Judicial Support and the company that operates the prison. "The human
errors which are occurring are unacceptable," Grace said. Grace said she
knew of three prisoners' being mistakenly released this year and added that
she was surprised to learn that media reports had documented as many as five.
Grace also said she did not know that, according to a report on the state
Department of Corrections website, two prisoners walked away last year. The
District Attorney's Office said Thursday bench warrants had been issued for
Ateia Polk, 32, of the 4500 block of North 11th Street, and David Jeffrey
Wilson, 19, of West 22d Street in Chester. Both were freed because of
paperwork errors. On June 14, murder suspect Taaqi "Fame" Brown of
Germantown was released after he was confused with another inmate with a
similar name. He turned himself in a day later. Community Education Centers
Inc. (CEC) of West Caldwell, N.J., has operated the country prison since
January 2009. Officially known as the George W. Hill Correctional Facility,
the Thornbury Township prison operates on a budget of $44 million from the
county and houses about 1,800 inmates. It is the only privately run county
prison in the state. Calls Friday to John J. Clancy, chief executive officer
of CEC, for comment were not returned. Prison Superintendent John A. Reilly
and Warden Frank Green also did not return calls; nor did John Hosier,
chairman of the board of the Delaware County Board of Prison Inspectors, and
County Solicitor Robert DiOrio. The District Attorney's Office said Friday
that its criminal investigation division would also investigate the mistaken
releases. Susan Bensinger, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections,
said county prisons "set and follow their own policies and
procedures." The state inspects prisons regularly. Delaware County
passed its most recent inspection, in 2008. It is scheduled for another by
the end of the year.

August
27, 2010 Philadelphia Daily News
The privately run George W. Hill Correctional Facility has been struggling
this summer with what you might call a prisoner-retention problem. Delaware
County authorities discovered this month that two inmates had been mistakenly
released from the prison due to clerical errors. Neither has been heard from
since. It's the fifth time that this has happened in recent months, according
to a county official. The prison, operated by New Jersey-based Community
Education Centers for $43 million a year, made headlines in June when accused
killer Taaqi Brown walked out because of a records snafu. Brown, 22, of
Germantown, turned himself in the next day, and the CEC clerk who let him out
was fired. Now, the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force is searching
for David Wilson, 19, of Chester, who was convicted in July of a firearms
offense, but was released from the prison Aug. 4, two weeks before he was to
be sentenced. Federal authorities also are looking for Ateia Polk, 32, of
Philadelphia, who is on the lam after the prison released her last month
prior to her trial on robbery, assault and related offenses. Polk is accused
of stealing jewelry from an Upper Darby beauty parlor and threatening to stab
the owner with a hairpin. "We're not pointing the finger at
anybody," said prison Superintendent John Reilly Jr., who oversees CEC's
performance on the county's behalf. "This is an in-house problem that
needs to be resolved here." Reilly said that Polk was released because a
prison employee misinterpreted a judge's order. The clerk apparently thought
that "no bail" meant that Polk could leave without posting bail.
"She just made a colossal mistake," Reilly said. In Wilson's case,
the prison never received a fax from the county's Office of Judicial Support
stating that his bail had been revoked. But Reilly said that a prison
employee should have double-checked that he was cleared for discharge.
"You need to do a more thorough search," he said. "The bottom
line is, you are responsible when you open the back
door." Reilly said that the prison's records department has been having
trouble handling the thousands of documents it receives every week. He
described it as a systemic problem that CEC is working to correct. "They
don't have a process in place to accurately accept all these documents,"
Reilly said. "They just come flying in. There's a real breakdown in
their process at that point." In some cases, such as Polk's, overwhelmed
employees are simply misreading the paperwork. "It's a longstanding
problem with the records department being able to process the volume,"
Reilly said. CEC took over the operation of the county prison last year after
the GEO Group abandoned its contract due to "financial underperformance
and frequent litigation." Located in Thornton, it is the only privately
run county prison in the state. CEC spokesman Christopher Greeder declined to
elaborate on the discharged inmates, other than to say that "the matter
is under review and the company is working closely with the county."
"This is the first crisis of the CEC era, and we're going to see how
good they are," Reilly said. "They'll have to get through it."

August
2, 2010 AP
A U.S. appeals court in Philadelphia says prison officials can ban employees
from wearing Muslim headscarves out of safety concerns. The judges say the
case is a close call. But they say prison officials have legitimate concerns
the headscarves can hide contraband or be used by an inmate to choke someone.
The 2-1 decision is a defeat for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The commission believes the three Muslim women employed at the Delaware
County Prison in Thornton had to compromise their religious beliefs to keep
their jobs. Monday's ruling upholds a district judge who dismissed the EEOC
lawsuit. The suit was filed against the Geo Group, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based
contractor that operated the prison.

July
31, 2010 Philadelphia InquirerThree former prison guards have sued the Delaware County prison, alleging
religious, sexual, and racial discrimination after they were fired for not
cutting their hair, which they say their religion forbids. Nigel LeBlanc,
Eugene Briggs and Zayid Bolds, all of Philadelphia, are followers of the
Rastafarian movement, which prohibits cutting hair on the head, including
facial hair, according to their lawsuit. They were asked to choose between
their jobs and their religion, said Jennifer L. Zegel, attorney for the men.
The prison is run by the New Jersey-based Community Education Centers (CEC),
which took over from GEO Group on Jan. 1, 2009. The men were fired seven days
later for failure to comply with the company's grooming policy.

June
17, 2010 Delco Times
Taaqi Brown’s taste of freedom lasted a little more than 12 hours. It likely
will take a lot longer than that for Delaware County prison officials to get
the bad taste out of their mouth from Brown’s sojourn. The county was jolted
early Tuesday morning with news of an “escape” from the George W. Hill
Correctional Facility. Uh, not exactly. As we learned a few hours later,
Brown did not escape. He walked out the front door. After he was given his
walking papers by prison employees. That’s how a man who police believe is
responsible for opening fire on a crowded playground, in the process killing
an unintended victim, was returned to society. Make no mistake,
Taaqi Brown was not incarcerated for a minor offense. He is an accused
killer. He was confined to 22-hour-a-day lockup in the Delco jail. He wore
the distinctive red jumpsuit that identifies him as a high-risk inmate. And
yet he was still given his walking papers and allowed to stroll – or perhaps
walk as quickly as his legs would carry him – to his girlfriend’s black SUV,
which was waiting for him outside. That’s because Brown had learned earlier
in the day that he was going to be cut loose. He contacted family members,
who made sure Brown had a ride when he became a free man. Prison officials
are now referring to the mistaken release as a paperwork snafu. A simple
human error. You can say that again. For his part, District Attorney G.
Michael Green didn’t sound as if he was totally convinced. While announcing
that Brown’s brief respite had earned him a felony escape charge, Green
insisted, “I want to know everything that happened here.” He’s not the only
one. Here’s what apparently went down. An inmate named Brown was in fact
supposed to be released. But it appears that it was Tarriq Smith-Brown,
Taaqi’s brother, who had done time on a minor drug charges,
who was supposed to be cut loose. If that sounds a little hard to believe,
you’re not the only one who feels that way. Neither Green nor Prison
Superintendent John Reilly, while indicating that it appeared to be a simple
clerical error, were willing to rule out something
else. Something more sinister. And they vowed to get to the bottom of it,
including any possibility that Brown got an assist from inside the prison.
Reilly indicated that the records clerk involved in Brown’s release
apparently failed to double-check the name while preparing the paperwork that
was supposed to free Tarriq Brown but instead opened the door for Taaqi. It
strains credulity that no one at the prison realized that a suspected killer
who was isolated in the prison as a high-risk inmate was simply going to be
allowed to walk out the front door. At worst it points to a serious security
breach at the facility. But even if it was a simple clerical error, it fuels
public distrust in the operation of the prison, which continues to be run by
a private firm, Community Education Centers. The county has had mixed results
at the prison since privatizing the operation when it built the new jail
several years ago. The prison was first run by Wackenhut, which then was
transformed into GEO, and for the past few years by
CEC. Lawsuits, staffing and other problems have been persistent issues.
Reilly, who noted the facility has had more than 3,000 discharges this year
without incident and 9,500 last year, knows all too well that when the prison
does things right, it doesn’t get attention. The mistaken release of a
suspected killer does. It does things like spark a countywide manhunt. It
puts citizens on edge. It fosters distrust in the county’s ability to keep
its citizens safe from criminals. “We need to solve the problem,” Reilly
said. He’ll get no argument here. This can’t happen again. County and prison
officials need to make sure it doesn’t.

June
16, 2010 Philadelphia Daily News
It wasn't "Prison Break" but, rather, prison breakdown in Delaware
County Monday night, when a murder suspect was accidentally set free from the
George W. Hill Correctional Facility. In an equally astonishing move, the
prisoner, Taaqi Brown, who could face life in jail if convicted of
first-degree murder, turned himself in yesterday and willfully went back to
prison less than 24 hours after he was released. Now detectives are
investigating if Brown's release was the result of human error or, perhaps,
the result of careful, human calculation. Upper Darby Police Superintendent
Michael Chitwood, whose department arrested Brown, 21, last year in the
murder of 19-year-old Aaron Kearney, said he got the call about Brown's
release about 10 Monday night. "My first reaction was 'What the f---!'
It's not like he's in for DUI," Chitwood said. "My second was to
ask 'How did this happen?' " Chitwood said he
was later informed that Brown's brother, Taariq Brown, 23, who also was at
the prison, was supposed to be the inmate released yesterday. When he was
released instead, Taaqi Brown, of Germantown, called his girlfriend, who
picked him up, Chitwood said. Brown's taste of freedom sent officers from
numerous agencies on an all-out manhunt yesterday. But about 11 a.m., Brown's
father contacted an inspector he knew in Philadelphia's Northwest Detectives
and said his son wanted to surrender, according to police. Chitwood said Brown
and his father were worried that he'd be shot to death by cops. "It was
the best thing for me to do," Brown told NBC 10, which rode with him as
he surrendered. "I would hate for police to run up on me and feel as
though I'm armed or I got a weapon on me." Brown maintains his innocence
in the video and in a surreal, media-saturated moment,
was recorded listening to a KYW Newsradio broadcast about his
"escape." Brown is charged with shooting Kearney to death in broad
daylight on a crowded Upper Darby playground on May 2, 2009. Delaware County
District Attorney G. Michael Green said Brown would face an additional charge
of escape because he knew that he should not have been released and did not
speak up. He acknowledged that someone should have noticed that Taaqi Brown
was in jail without bail, that he was in 22-hour lockup and that he wore a
different-colored jumpsuit - red - to denote his alleged violent crime.
"There were an obvious number of indicators that should have set off
bells and whistles," Green said. Prison Superintendent John Reilly Jr.
said it was too early to determine whether Brown's release had been an
accident or perhaps an inside job. "We can't rule out that these two
didn't try to orchestrate it," Reilly said. "I can't rule out that
they didn't get the records girl to submit Taaqi Brown's data as a
discharge." County detectives were planning to interview the 23-year-old
records clerk who was hired three months ago, as well as corrections officers
and "anyone in the prison that could have facilitated the discharge
process," Reilly said. Even though the brothers' names are similar, the
records clerk should have noticed that they had a different inmate number,
birth date and court-identification number, he said. "This could have been
a colossal mis-hire," Reilly said. "If that's what it is, we'll
address it." The George W. Hill Correctional Facility is the only
privately run county prison in the state. Last year, New Jersey-based
Community Education Centers (CEC) replaced the GEO Group as prison operator.
The records clerk is an employee of CEC. From 2002 through 2004, three
inmates were mistakenly released from the county prison. In one instance, a
6-foot-4, 250-pound black man named Markish Thomas was released instead of a
Mike Thomas, a 5-foot-10, 165-pound white man with blond hair and blue eyes.

May
20, 2010 Philadelphia InquirerA company that formerly operated the Delaware County Prison has settled a
federal class-action lawsuit involving strip-searches of incoming inmates
charged with minor crimes. The $2.9 million settlement awards up to $400 each
to about 10,000 inmates at six GEO Group facilities. Prisoners at the
Delaware County facility, now operated by Community Education Centers of West
Caldwell, N.J., who were strip-searched between Jan. 30, 2006, and Jan. 30,
2008, may be eligible for settlement awards. The lawsuit named five other GEO
Group prisons, in Texas, New Mexico, and Illinois. "As a direct result
of this litigation, GEO has changed its strip-search
policies in those prisons which it still operates," an attorney for the
plaintiffs, Joseph G. Sauder of Haverford, said in an e-mail. A call seeking
comment from the Florida-based GEO Group, which operated the prison until
December 2008, was not returned. John A. Reilly, superintendent of the
prison, when asked about the current strip-search policy, said, "I have
no idea. See you." He then hung up. "In our view, there is simply
no justification for this kind of invasive body search for those individuals
coming to the institution who pose no security risk to the institution,"
said David Rudovsky, a Philadelphia lawyer who also represented a plaintiff
in the case. Those eligible to apply for settlement include prisoners who
were not accused of drug, weapons, or violent crimes; those involving
probation or parole violations; and those who did not behave in a manner that
would give guards cause to conduct strip searches. According to court
documents, one of the main plaintiffs, Penny Allison of Media, was arrested
in November 2005 for driving under the influence and was placed in a
first-time offenders program. Allison failed to appear for a hearing and a
bench warrant was issued. She was stopped by Springfield police for an
expired registration in July 2006, arrested, and then transferred to the
prison. While being searched, a female corrections officer looked at
Allison's bra and remarked, "Nice bra," according to court
documents. The bra was not returned upon her release eight days later, the
documents said. Allison was arrested in December 2007 and pleaded guilty to a
second DUI, records said. She was sentenced to 15 weekends and strip-searched
upon entering the prison. "During these strip searches, the corrections
officer brings all of the weekend females into a classroom-size room and
strip-searches them one by one in front of all the other females," court
documents said of the Delaware County facility.

March
6, 2010 Philadelphia Enquirer
Saying it is owed $7.3 million, Aramark Corp., the Philadelphia food-services
provider, has sued a New Jersey operator of correctional facilities. In the
suit, Aramark contends Community Education Centers Inc., of West Caldwell,
N.J., has been in default on bills since at least June 2008. Locally, Aramark
services Community Education Centers facilities in
Philadelphia, Delaware County, Reading, and Trenton. Aramark's lawsuit, filed
Feb. 18 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, said Community Education
Centers was overdue on $5.2 million of the total, and it requested that a
judgment, including interest, costs, and attorney's fees, be entered in its
favor. In an e-mailed statement yesterday, Community Education Centers said
it "does not comment on pending litigation except to say that the two
companies are in negotiations regarding the matter." Community Education
Centers is one of a number of companies considered likely to bid on a prison
privatization contract in Camden County. Last year, a unit of the company
bought options on land in Camden as a potential site for a new prison, but
the site has been ruled out by county freeholders because of neighborhood
protests. The privately held company, which operates in 19 states, employs
4,500 and services nearly 30,000 individuals, did not comment specifically on
the proposed privatization of Camden County's prison system. Among Community
Education Centers' investors is Philadelphia private-equity firm LLR
Partners. The firm's investment fund, LLR Equity Partners II L.P., in 2007
bought $53 million worth of preferred stock, according to a regulatory filing.
LLR cofounder Seth Lehr, who is on Community Education Centers' board of
directors, said the firm does not comment on companies in its portfolio.

November
19, 2009 Delco TimesA union representing approximately 300 employees at the county-owned
George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Concord recently reached a three-year
contract agreement with the private company the county has hired to run
day-to-day operations at the prison. Members of the Delaware County Prison
Employees Independent Union voted 155-14 Monday to accept the contract, which
offers a 12 percent wage increase over three years, retroactive to June 1.
The contract expires June 2012. Union President Michael Pelleriti said his
members were not happy with the fact that they now have to pay $36 per month
for single-coverage health care, but the contract does allow members to opt
out of hospitalization insurance. Overtime and vacation time will now count
as hours worked under the contract, said Pelleriti, and there is now a
disciplinary arbitration procedure in place. “This gives the members
protection against unjust terminations,” he said. “The negotiations were very
difficult and tedious, but we did come away with something we feel we can
live with for the next three years.”

July
18, 2009 Philadelphia Inquirer
Back on the street after a record-setting 14-year jail sentence for contempt,
H. Beatty Chadwick is learning that he needs a quick update on the 21st
century. Like, what's with those cell phones everyone has plugged to their
ears? What's with the Internet? And does he get a PC or a Mac? As Chadwick,
73, rejoins the "land of the living," he's discovering all the
things that must be done in what has become a "complicated
society." In an interview, he also launched into an unprompted critique
of the 1,800-inmate Delaware County jail. The former Main Line corporate
lawyer was jailed by a Delaware County Court judge in April 1995 for failing
to turn over $2.5 million in alimony to his ex-wife, Barbara
"Bobbie" Applegate. The couple were
married for 15 years. Chadwick contended that he lost the money in a bad
overseas investment. The judge believed Chadwick had hidden the money from
his ex-wife and ordered him jailed until he produced the millions.
Court-ordered investigations conducted since he went to jail have turned up
no money. Petitions for release over the years were denied by numerous
judges, who believed he had the money. Last week, President Judge Joseph P.
Cronin Jr. ruled that keeping Chadwick in jail had lost "coercive
effect," even though he thought Chadwick "had the ability to
comply." Standing outside a Lancaster Avenue cafe in Wayne this week,
Chadwick looked at a street he no longer recognized. The traffic, he said, is
worse. He wondered what had happened to a small grocer he once frequented.
Chadwick has e-mail and Internet service to set up - neither was in wide use
when he went to jail - and is busy with mundane tasks: retrieving belongings
from storage, getting the electricity turned on in his Wilmington apartment .
. . and changing all his subscriptions to a new address. Chadwick was an avid
reader in jail, devouring the Wall Street Journal and the Economist, among
others. He was one of about 150 inmates who held a job at the prison. His
first position, assigned a few years after he arrived, was as the assistant
to the official who classified prisoners upon entry as minimum, medium, or
maximum security. For the last six years, Chadwick worked in the prison
library, where he helped inmates with letter-writing and tutored for GED exams.
He also volunteered legal advice. Chadwick said he was "shocked"
how poorly educated some inmates were. "Writing was one of the hardest
things," said Chadwick. "The idea of writing really flummoxes a lot
of people." Some inmates he encountered dropped out of school in the
sixth grade and could only read on a second-grade level. Others did not know
their multiplication tables. "One thing I missed in jail was not being
able to cook," said Chadwick, who read Bon Appetit while imprisoned. His
first meal on the outside was a veggie taco from Ruby Tuesday. Next up was a
roasted chicken at home. Cable TV? "I haven't tried [getting] that
yet," said Chadwick, who in jail got by with rabbit ears and a handful
of channels. Back in 1995, a good system had about 50 channels. Pay-per-view
was not commonly used. Chadwick says he was lucky that his son, William, who
lives in King of Prussia, is helping with the transition and providing
transportation. "If I didn't have him, I'd be in great difficulty,"
he said. The two grew closer while he was in prison. Chadwick says he has
seen other inmates who have had a difficult transition to post-prison life.
When first released, prisoners without support from family or friends are
dumped on a Chester street corner with "nary a penny" and must fend
for themselves, inmates told him. "They do nothing about trying to get
people jobs, housing, or even their next meal," Chadwick said. At one
point, Chadwick said, the prison dropped former inmates at a mall, but this
was halted after mall managers complained that the former inmates were
stealing from stores, he said. For most of Chadwick's tenure, the county's
George W. Hill Correctional Facility was run by the GEO Group. Community
Education Centers of New Jersey took over the contract in January. Bill
Palatucci, a spokesman for Community Education Centers, said policies,
including release procedures and the maximum jail population, are set by the
county. "We are simply acting as their agent," Palatucci said.
Superintendent John A. Reilly Jr. did not return a call for comment. Linda
Cartisano, County Council chair, did not return calls. Over the years,
Chadwick had a number of cellmates. He said one man, unable to raise $500
bail, spent six months waiting to plead guilty to drug possession. He said
the prison was often overcrowded, with three prisoners sometimes housed in
cells meant for two. He never had more than one cellmate, he said.

June
11, 2009 Delco TimesThe daughter of a opiate-addicted man who hanged himself while
incarcerated has filed a lawsuit against the private, for-profit company that
was running the George W. Hill Correctional Facility at the time of his
death. Thomas Bryant, 38, of Lower Chichester, underwent a mental-health
screening and health-services physical examination about 3:15 a.m. Nov. 14,
2007, the day after he was committed to the facility under the management of
Geo Group Inc. It was at that time that Bryant’s “opiate dependency and
narcotics dependence was made known ... but no psychiatric consultation or
drug-abuse treatment was prescribed,” according to the lawsuit, filed June 3
on behalf of Jessica Bryant at the Media Courthouse and alleging wrongful
death. During his four-day confinement, the lawsuit states, Bryant began to
show signs and symptoms of drug withdrawal — ranging from inability to sleep
or eat for three days, nausea, cold sweats and unbearable pain — but his
complaints were ignored. Alone in his cell on Nov. 16, Bryant hanged himself
with linens provided by the defendants, the suit states. “Had defendants
provided Thomas Bryant with the appropriate medical care for his opiate
withdrawal, drug detoxification, and/or appropriate suicide screening and
precautions for known risks ... Thomas Bryant would have been unable to
commit suicide,” the lawsuit alleges. The GEO Group Inc. is named as a
defendant, along with former Warden Ronald Nardolillo, Classification
Counselor Michael Moore, correctional officers T. Hammett and Connie Danley,
Dr. William Purner, and all others responsible for medical care of Bryant
during his confinement from Nov. 13-16. The Geo Group Inc., formerly
Wackenhut Corp., was responsible for day-to-day operations at the 1,900-bed
prison in Concord until January of this year. Nardolillo, Danley and Purner
are no longer with the county facility, prison Superintendent John Reilly
said Wednesday. Though Moore remains an employee at the prison, the status of
the others named in the suit was not immediately known. Reilly said Wednesday
he was unaware of the lawsuit and had no comment, but was familiar with
Bryant. Reilly said Wednesday he remembered meeting with family and returning
belongings the day after Bryant’s death, which he described as “sad.”
Procedure dictates all lawsuits be forwarded to prison Solicitor Robert
D’Orio on receipt, Reilly said. Neither D’Orio nor anyone at Geo Group Inc.
in Boca Raton, Fla., could be reached for comment after business hours
Wednesday. According to Daily Times archives, Bryant was remanded to the
prison following an arrest in Chester on a probation violation for drug
paraphernalia.

May
14, 2009 Delco TimesTwo corrections officers at the county-owned George W. Hill Correctional
Facility in Concord have been suspended pending an investigation into a
fracas May 3, prison officials have confirmed. Details were still vague
Wednesday with an in-house investigation ongoing, but facility Superintendent
John Reilly said there was an allegation that Sgt. Matthew Talley had beaten
an inmate. The district attorney’s Criminal Investigation Division is also
investigating, said spokesman Michael Mattson. A letter to the Daily Times
from another inmate who claimed to have witnessed the event described Talley
savagely beating a handcuffed man until he could no longer stand on his own.
Talley’s attorney, Joe McIntosh, said the man had attacked another officer
and his client’s actions “were defensive as a result of a combative inmate.”
“We cooperated and did an interview with CID and it is our position that any
actions on the part of Mr. Talley were justified by the inmate’s actions,”
said McIntosh. No charges had been filed as of Wednesday. Talley and
Corrections Officer Mark Lombardo have been suspended without pay pending the
investigation. There was no telephone number listed for Lombardo. Bill
Palatucci, spokesman for New Jersey-based Community Education Centers Inc.,
the for-profit company that took over prison operations in January, said the
company is aware of the investigation and will “actively pursue it,” but
could not comment further.

April
1, 2009 Delco Times
A 2008 lawsuit alleging the private, for-profit company that formerly ran the
Delaware County prison routinely violated strip-search prohibitions for minor
offenders will move forward, following a ruling in federal court last week.
The GEO Group Inc., formerly Wackenhut Corp., was responsible for day-to-day
operations at the 1,900-bed George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Thornton
until January of this year. It is responsible for dozens of jails and similar
facilities nationwide, according to the company’s Web site. Plaintiffs Penny
Allison of Media and Zoran Hocevar of Upper Darby allege GEO and up to 100 of
its employees routinely strip-searched nonviolent, non-drug offenders
entering or transferring into its facilities, in violation of their Fourth
Amendment rights. They are seeking class-action status and demanding a jury
trial. Allison had served 15 weekends at the facility on a DUI charge,
according to the complaint. Each time she entered the facility, Allison
alleges she was strip-searched in front of other female weekend inmates.
Hocevar was arrested for drug possession in 2005, according to the complaint.
This later led to a bench warrant being issued for Hocevar’s arrest after he
allegedly mistakenly failed to appear for a court date. Hocevar was arrested
on that warrant and transported to county prison, where he was allegedly
strip-searched in front of other detainees. Last year, GEO successfully
petitioned the court to throw out three counts of battery, intentional
infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional
distress. GEO had asked the court to further dismiss three counts seeking
monetary damages for the alleged Fourth Amendment violations, a demand for
declaratory relief regarding those alleged violations, and a demand for preliminary
and permanent injunction for those alleged violations. In his 49-page order,
Senior District Judge for the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania Jan E. DuBois went over several standards set forth by U.S.
Supreme Court rulings relative to what privacy, if any, detainees in a
custodial facility could reasonably expect. Chief among them was a 1984
Supreme Court case relating to the search of prison cells. GEO had argued
that case undermined a 1979 decision that assumed inmates — both convicted
prisoners and pretrial detainees — retained some Fourth Amendment rights. GEO
also argued DuBois should view this suit using a more general standard of
privacy the Supreme Court established in a 1987 ruling, which would paint the
strip-search policy as constitutional, granted it was “reasonably related to
general penological interests.” DuBois rejected both arguments,
however, due to lack of any credible examples the later cases undermined or
overruled the 1979 case. “This court will not disregard controlling Supreme
Court precedent that has not been specifically overruled by subsequent
Supreme Court cases,” wrote DuBois in the order. DuBois also noted all courts
faced with the issue have ruled blanket strip searches of detainees unreasonable
and, therefore, unconstitutional. He noted last week’s ruling would not
prejudice GEO’s ability to argue the constitutionality of its alleged actions
at the summary judgment stage or at trial.

December
22, 2008 Philadelphia EnquirerAT ONE END of Delaware County's rekindled debate over prison privatization, you'll find Wally Nunn, a tough-talking
fiscal hawk and former county councilman. At the other, Fay Kallenbach, a
bereaved mother. The George W. Hill Correctional Facility is ground zero.
Nunn led the 1995 effort to privatize the county jail, outsourcing its
operation to the GEO Group, a multinational corrections corporation. He
stands by his decision today, saying the move cut government waste and saved
taxpayers millions of dollars – including the more than $30 million the
county saved by hiring GEO, then called Wackenhut
Corrections Corp., to build the current prison in 1998. "It's a success
right there, by definition," Nunn said. Fay Kallenbach has a different
perspective. She says privatizing the prison has put inmates in the care of a
money-hungry "machine" that cuts corners anywhere it can. Her son,
comedian Kenneth Keith Kallenbach, died in April of complications from cystic
fibrosis while in prison custody. She says he didn't receive the crucial
treatment that had kept him alive for 39 years. "They definitely killed
my son," she said of Florida-based GEO. The deep philosophical divide
between Kallenbach and Nunn is typical when it comes to prison privatization,
a love-it-or-hate-it concept that pits labor unions against politicians and
corporate leaders against inmate-advocacy groups. Regardless, if Nunn is
considered Delaware County's "father of privatization," his first
born remains an only child in Pennsylvania – and there have been some growing
pains lately. In the 12 years since the county handed the jailhouse keys to
GEO, no other county in the state has followed its lead. Now, the company is
terminating its $40-million-a-year contract there, ridden out of town by an
onslaught of lawsuits and inadequate profits. A new firm takes over on New
Year's Day. All about the $$$ -- Prison Superintendent John Reilly Jr.
oversees GEO's performance at the 1,883-bed lockup in Thornton, and he
doesn't shy away from discussing the good, the bad and the ugly. There has
been plenty of each, from huge cost savings and indemnification from
civil-rights lawsuits, to filthy showers and dead inmates. The cost of
operating the prison - nearly $45 million when you factor in the
superintendent and his staff – is the single largest expenditure of county
tax dollars in the budget. It is expected to eat up 15 percent of the $303
million budget next year. But GEO has run the prison cheaper than the county
ever could, Reilly said. And outsourcing still saves the government an
estimated $3.2 million a year, according to Delaware County Executive
Director Marianne Grace. By having Reilly and his staff on the premises, the
county's version of privatization is ideal because the government is able to
keep an eye on GEO and implement hefty fines - more than $700,000 this year -
when the jail is understaffed. "Our security, maintenance and food
service is similar to, and in some instances maybe better, than when the
county ran it," Reilly said. Proponents of privatization say profit-driven
companies can eliminate patronage jobs, play hardball with the labor unions
and find new efficiencies without a substantial drop-off in services.
Government officials "tend to hire people that have worked on their
campaigns or political-patronage people," Nunn said. "Corporations
tend to hire people that are competent and capable. They can manage more
effectively than a public entity can." Critics say the profit incentive
is a double-edged sword, and that the industry makes its money on the backs
of inmates and guards by reducing personnel costs and cutting back on inmate
care. "I don't trust them as far as I can throw them," said Ken
Kopczynski, executive director of the Private Corrections Institute and a
lobbyist for the Florida Police Benevolent Association, a union that
represents police and correctional officers. "All those millions of
dollars they are making that are going into corporate executives' pockets
should have been put into inmates services," he said. Delaware County
officials say they are generally satisfied with GEO's performance here since
1996, with one large caveat: The medical services in the prison have, at
times, fallen woefully short. Employee turnover in that department has been
extremely high in recent years, Reilly said, and the company has gone through
eight health-services administrators since 2004. As a result, the daily
"pill call" for inmates, for example, is sometimes run by nurses
who are incompetent or overworked, he said, and the backlog of prisoners waiting
for medical attention can exceed 400 cases. "The medical department has
underperformed here," Reilly concedes. GEO has spent an inordinate
amount of time and money fending off federal lawsuits, including
wrongful-death cases. The frequent litigation is one of the main reasons the
company is bailing out on its contract next week. In 2006, the company agreed
to pay $100,000 to the family of Rosalyn Atkinson, a 25-year-old mother of
two who died from a toxic dose of a blood-pressure drug while in prison
custody. In October, GEO agreed to an undisclosed settlement in the case of
Cassandra Morgan, 38, who died in 2006 of complications from an untreated
thyroid condition while jailed on a shoplifting charge. GEO also paid
$125,000 in 2005 to the family of a prisoner who hung himself with his
bootlaces and agreed to a $300,000 settlement in 2000 involving another
suicide. Fay Kallenbach and her attorney are awaiting more medical
information before deciding whether to move forward with a lawsuit on behalf
of her son, a longtime member of Howard Stern's "Wack Pack." Prison
officials say they are not at fault in his death. While the Delaware County
prison was far from a utopia when it was run by the county - seven guards
were convicted of federal charges stemming from inmate beatings in 1994 -
GEO's correctional officers have compiled a lengthy rap sheet since the jail
was privatized. This year a K-9 officer pleaded guilty to having sex with an
inmate in his pickup truck, and a guard admitted to sending a forged letter
to the state parole board so her boyfriend - a convicted murderer - could
move in with her. In 2006 the jail's former work-release supervisor, who is
now registered under Megan's Law as a sex offender, pleaded guilty to
sexually assaulting an inmate, and a guard pleaded guilty in federal court
last year to conspiracy to commit bank robbery. Two other guards were
convicted of participating in a 2002 attack on an inmate who claimed that he
was handcuffed and pummeled with a basketball and that his pants were pulled down.
That inmate's attorney, Jon Auritt, has said the incident reminded him of
"Abu Ghraib, except without the dogs." GEO later paid an
undisclosed settlement in that case, though. Prison staff incorrectly
released three inmates between 2002 and 2004, and in 2006, GEO agreed to pay
a settlement to an innocent man who sued the company because he was
imprisoned for more than 40 days. It was a case of mistaken identity. GEO
officials declined to be interviewed for this story, as did state Rep. John
Perzel, R-Phila., a paid member of its board of directors. The company did
not admit any wrongdoing in the lawsuits it settled. Pa. counties unreceptive
-- In 1998, the state Supreme Court approved the privatization of the
Delaware County prison, ruling against the prison guards' union, which had
filed suit to block the outsourcing. At the time, labor leaders fretted that
the ruling would pave the way for other counties to hire firms to run their
own jails. That never happened. While privatization has taken off in other
states, particularly Texas, the George W. Hill Correctional Facility remains
the only privately-run county prison in Pennsylvania, largely due to strong
union resistance, according to Richard Culp, a prison privatization expert
and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
"It's a matter of labor costs, pure and simple," said Culp, who has
worked as a consultant for the Delaware County Board of Prison Inspectors.
Beaver County tried to privatize its prison in 2006, but was bombarded by
union opposition. The county lost a ruling by an arbitrator, which was upheld
in Common Pleas Court, according to county Commissioner Charles Camp. Beaver
County officials decided not to appeal the case because the legal bills were
getting so high, he said. "We had everyone coming at us," Camp said
of the unions that fought the privatization proposal. "It would have
saved us a million bucks a year," he said, adding that the county is now
facing a $2 million budget deficit and is planning layoffs. Large corrections
companies increasingly are looking to the federal government for their
profits, and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and other federal
agencies have been expanding their use of private companies in recent years,
Culp said. While Culp recommended that counties and other government agencies
keep a short leash on those firms – as Delaware County does – he said the
industry has become more "professional" since the mid-1990s.
"I think the market has shaken out a lot of the underperformers and poor
performers and people that got into it to make a fast buck," Culp said.
The future is CEC -- Community Education Centers (CEC), a smaller,
privately-held company that specializes in inmate re-entry services, will
replace the GEO Group on Jan. 1 at the Delaware County prison. Based in West
Caldwell, N.J., CEC operates county prisons in Texas, Arizona and Ohio, as
well as treatment centers within publicly-run prisons. In Philadelphia, it
runs Hoffman Hall, a residential re-entry center for city inmates that opened
in July, and Coleman Hall, which runs a work-release program for state
inmates. William Palatucci, a CEC senior vice president, said the Delaware
County prison will become the largest county jail in the company's network.
Most of the existing GEO guards will keep their jobs, and county officials
say that guards that once worked for GEO are interested in coming back now
that the company is leaving. CEC made headlines in 2004 when a Coleman Hall
resident was shot to death in his room, and the company is being sued by the
Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project on behalf of several inmates who said
they were denied adequate medical care there. Palatucci declined to comment
on the litigation, but said the company planned to bring to the Delaware
County prison a "renewed commitment to quality operations." "I
think competition is good for everybody. It keeps the public sector and
private sector on their toes," he said. "At the end of the day,
that's good for the taxpayer." Robert Eskind, spokesman for the
Philadelphia Prison System, said the city is "pleased so far" with
CEC's performance at Hoffman Hall. County officials say CEC could be a better
fit than GEO at their jail, particularly because the company has experience
in reducing recidivism. Overcrowding has long been a problem there. John
Hosier, chairman of the county Board of Prison Inspectors, is optimistic
about the changing of the guard, but warned against unrealistic expectations.
"We can hope for the best," Hosier said, "but it is a jail."

November
14, 2008 Delco TimesThe victim remained shackled Thursday and the defendant was free, but
that will change after an ex-Delaware County prison correctional officer was
sentenced to three to 23 months in jail for having sex with a 25-year-old female
inmate earlier this year. Michael Waters, 38, of 200 block
of South Church Street, Clifton Heights, will report Monday to his former
work site — the Delaware County prison, after Judge William R. Toal Jr.
imposed the sentence. “Frankly, I am appalled at this type of conduct,” said
the judge. “He (Waters) certainly abused his position.” The judge allowed
Waters to remain free until Monday to allow time for him to handle personal
matters, as well as to alert the prison to security concerns and possibly make
arrangements for him to be moved to another facility. Waters, who was employed with the GEO Group that was running the
county prison at the time, had sexual trysts with the woman while she was on
work release off the prison grounds. As Waters was being sentenced, the
dark-haired victim, who was transported from the prison, sat on one side of
the courtroom staring straight ahead. The defendant’s wife, who is confined
to a wheelchair, was on the other side sobbing. Neither gave a statement in
court. Deputy District Attorney Michael Galantino recommended the jail stint,
calling the sentence “appropriate” considering the charges against Waters.
The defendant pleaded guilty in July to a charge of institutional sexual
abuse. “When somebody is in charge of supervising inmates and takes advantage
of one as he did, it disrupts the entire system,” Galantino said outside the
courtroom. Defense attorney Ronald Smith said that Waters is the father of
two sons, one of whom suffers from epilepsy. He asked the court for leniency,
citing the needs of his family, as well as Waters’ cooperation from the
beginning. Waters appeared remorseful as he looked back at his wife and
mother, who were in court together. “I apologize to everybody I affected — my
family and the people at work,” he said. He lamented he lost his job, is
losing his home and said his family is dependent on him. Outside the
courtroom, Galantino said he sympathized with the family, but maintained that
Waters should have thought about them before he committed the crime. “It’s
always amazing when someone doesn’t consider the family while committing the
crime, and then at the sentencing presents their family’s needs as a reason
for leniency,” said Galantino. “It is clear he has hurt more than one
victim.” Galantino said the sentence took into consideration Waters’
cooperation. “The (state’s recommended) guidelines could have gone higher,”
he said. Smith called the crime an “aberration” on the part of his client,
stating he had a “spotless record.” The defense attorney sought a
probationary term. At the time of the plea, Galantino said there was no
allegation of force. The law provides that a person employed at a
correctional institution commits a crime if there is sexual intercourse with
an inmate or detainee. Prison Superintendent John Reilly Jr. said that Waters
had been employed since Nov. 16, 1998, with the GEO Group. He was earning $16
an hour at the time he was terminated last March, after the charges surfaced.
Waters was arrested after the female inmate told authorities that while she
was on work release, she and Waters would hook up off of the prison grounds.
She told investigators she first met Waters while he was patrolling at the
prison and she told him where she would be working that day. He replied, “Maybe
I’ll stop by,” according to a court document. She said Waters picked her up
on at least four occasions for sex between Feb. 25 and March 20, according to
the court document.

October
28, 2008 Philadelphia InquirerA 44-year-old East Lansdowne man hanged himself Saturday inside his cell
at the Delaware County prison, authorities said. The privatized jail is run
by the GEO Group, which has settled several wrongful-death lawsuits there in
recent years, including one suicide. Citing frequent litigation and other
reasons, the company announced in August that it is ending its agreement to
operate the prison in early January, a year before its contract expires.

October
24, 2008 Philadelphia Daily NewsThe Delaware County Board of Prison Inspectors didn't have much of a
choice yesterday in deciding which company would run the George W. Hill
Correctional Facility next year. Only one firm in the country was willing to
assume the $40 million annual contract left behind by the Florida-based GEO
Group, which is skipping town amid a flurry of costly lawsuits and an
inability to turn a substantial profit at the 1,883-bed county lockup. The
five-member board awarded the contract to Community Education Centers (CEC),
a smaller company that specializes in inmate re-entry programs and, according
to its Web site, "believes in the opportunity for redemption" and
providing "second chances" to ex-offenders. John Reilly, the jail's
acting superintendent, who oversees GEO's performance on the county's behalf,
said that CEC will begin managing the prison on Jan. 5 and is expected to
retain most of the 500 GEO employees. The prison, located in Thornbury, has
been operated by GEO, formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp., since 1996 and is
the state's only privatized county jail. The cost of running the prison -
about $43.8 million this year - is the single largest expenditure of county
tax dollars in Delaware County's $316 million annual budget. But officials
say that the public-private partnership has saved taxpayers millions. After
getting word in August that GEO was bailing out on its contract, which ran
through 2009, the prison board asked 11 companies if they wanted to give it a
shot.

October
23, 2008 Delco TimesAn out-of-court settlement was ironed out Wednesday in the federal civil
suit over the death of Cassandra Morgan, whose family maintained she was
improperly treated for a debilitating mental illness and a hypothyroid
condition while an inmate at Delaware County’s prison leading to her 2006
death. The terms of the settlement reached over the noon recess included a
confidentiality clause, according to attorney James Mundy, who represented
the victim’s family. “We are barred from discussing the outcome,” said Mundy.
All he would say is that the parties were “satisfied.” U.S. District Court
Judge Berle M. Schiller told the jury about 2 p.m., following four days of
testimony, their services were no longer needed and “the case has been
resolved.” At the start of the proceedings Wednesday, before the jury was
brought in, Schiller indicated the trial could go into next week because of
the unavailability of a witness for the defendant’s side. He said such an
extension would pose a “hardship” on the jurors who were told the trial would
end by Friday. “I don’t think anyone wants to retry this case,” said
Schiller. The judge said that problem could be remedied by alternatives,
including converting the proceedings to a bench trial and allowing him to
make the final ruling. He then advised both sides that talking to each other
could “eliminate” the need for a bench trial. Earlier, Schiller reportedly
dismissed parties originally named in the lawsuit except for Dr. Grato
Paneque, a psychiatrist employed at the prison, as well as the Delaware
County Board of Prison Inspectors and the GEO group, a Florida company that
operated the prison while Morgan, 38, was an inmate there on a shoplifting
offense. Morgan, who was in jail for six weeks, died at Riddle Memorial
Hospital after suffering a seizure at the prison and lapsing into a coma in
her jail cell. Carolyn Short, the attorney representing the prison board,
presented one witness Wednesday — Dr. Peter Crino, a neurologist who heads
the Epilepsy Center for the University of Pennsylvania. Crino, testifying as an expert, discounted claims the prison was at fault
for failing to properly treat Morgan before her March 29, 2006, death.
However, on cross-examination by Mundy, the attorney cast doubt on some of
the records that Crino used in arriving at his conclusion. Mundy said one of
the reports indicated the patient “walked in” and was “pregnant.” He said
Riddle’s computer had mixed the medical report on Morgan, who was not
pregnant and came to the hospital by ambulance on a stretcher with the record
of another patient. Crino was to be re-examined by Short following the
luncheon recess. However, it wasn’t necessary once the settlement was
reached.

October
22, 2008 Philadelphia InquirerA nurse who cared for Cassandra "Sandy" Morgan at the Delaware
County jail told jurors in a federal courtroom yesterday that she wanted to
do more for her but was limited by the law. "I just wanted her so badly
to go to psychiatric hospital," Maureen Hoffman, a nurse at the George
W. Hill Correctional Facility, testified at the civil trial. But each time
Hoffman spoke with the jail staff psychologist, she said, he reminded her:
"We can't. Nobody is going to take her." Morgan, 38, of Aston, died
after she suffered a seizure at the jail on March 25, 2006. Morgan suffered
from paranoid schizophrenia and did not tell jail staff that she had a
thyroid condition and needed medication. She died after five weeks of
incarceration without her medication. Her family has sued the county Board of
Prison Inspectors and the company that operates the jail, arguing that Morgan
should have been sent for outside psychiatric help. Yesterday, Hoffman and
forensic psychiatrist Kenneth Weiss testified that the jail did everything
possible for Morgan within state law.

October
21, 2008 Philadelphia InquirerThe Delaware County medical examiner yesterday defended his conclusion
that an easily treatable thyroid condition caused the death of a 38-year-old
Aston woman at the county jail. Cassandra "Sandy" Morgan died in
March 2006 after being held for five weeks at the George W. Hill Correctional
Facility on a shoplifting charge. Morgan had schizophrenia and did not tell
jail staff that she needed a thyroid-replacement hormone. Her family has sued
the jail in U.S. District Court, arguing that its staff should not have
depended on Morgan as the sole historian of her medical past and should have
called 911 more quickly when she suffered a seizure. Lawyers for the Morgan
family wrapped up their presentation of testimony yesterday with Morgan's
younger sister, Erika, and the medical examiner, Frederic Hellman. Hellman,
who performed an autopsy on Morgan, said she suffered a slow decline during
her incarceration because she did not receive the hormone. Without the
medication, her metabolism slowed and her blood pressure and heart rate
dropped, along with her temperature, eventually causing a seizure, he
testified. Soon after jail medical staff transferred Morgan to Riddle
Memorial Hospital, she was severely hypothermic, with a temperature of 82.8
degrees, according to hospital records. But John Gonzales, who represents jail
staffers named in the suit, argued that Morgan did not show the classic
symptoms of hypothroidism: cold, dry skin, loss of hair, weight, gain and low
body temperature. Nurses who checked Morgan's vital signs during her
incarceration found her temperature within normal range and her skin warm and
pink, according to nursing logs.

October
18, 2008 Philadelphia InquirerCassandra "Sandy" Morgan, who was arrested for stealing from a
Wal-Mart that she believed she owned, should have been taken to a hospital, not
a jail, a psychiatrist testified in federal court yesterday. Morgan, 38, of
Aston, suffered from schizophrenia, and her condition had grown worse when
the police caught her trying to take toys in February 2006. "I think she
was a medical psychiatric emergency from the minute she was taken into that
prison," said Eric Fine, a clinical psychiatrist and associate professor
at Jefferson Medical College. The psychiatric care she received during her
five-week incarceration at the Delaware County jail was "an incompetent
level," Fine testified yesterday. Morgan died of complications from a
thyroid condition for which she did not receive medication while in jail. Her
family has sued the George W. Hill Correctional Facility and the GEO Group, a
Florida-based company that operates the jail. Fine testified as an expert for
the plaintiff. Lawyers for the jail argue that Morgan was appropriately cared
for at the jail: She was visited four times by contracting psychiatrists who
prescribed antipsychotic medication. She was housed in the infirmary, where
nurses monitored her and correctional officers looked in on her every 15
minutes. Morgan did not tell jail staff that she had a thyroid condition, and
although several of her siblings said they talked to a jail counselor about
the medications Morgan needed, the jail contends that it never knew. Defense
lawyers also argue that Morgan did not pose a clear and immediate danger to herself or others, and therefore could not have been
committed to a hospital because she did not meet the legal standard. Fine
disagrees. He faulted the two psychiatrists who saw her, Grato Paneque and
Hani Zaki, for trusting Morgan to give them an accurate medical and mental
health history. Had they investigated her past, they would have found that she
had been hospitalized 14 times in the three years before her arrest and had
been released from Crozer-Chester Medical Center nine days before her arrest,
Fine testified. With her medical history in hand, Fine added, doctors might
have seen that Morgan's case required more proactive measures than simply
prescribing medication and observing her. "If you don't have the history
in a psychiatric patient, you know virtually nothing," Fine testified.
"Cassandra Morgan was not capable of presenting her history." Morgan
refused to take her psychiatric medication during her incarceration and
became more withdrawn, a sign that she was in acute mental distress, Fine
said. "We're always sensitive when patients change from agitated to
withdrawn," Fine said, adding it's a signal that "thoughts are
going on that are not being shared." The plaintiff's attorneys are
expected to wrap up their case Monday. The defense will present its case next
week.

October
16, 2008 Delco TimesA psychiatrist employed at Delaware County prison testified in federal
court Wednesday that Cassandra Lynn Morgan was “obviously delusional,” but
stated he could not force her to take her medications. Dr. Grato Paneque
testified during day two of the trial in the lawsuit over Cassandra Lynn
“Sandy” Morgan’s death on March 29, 2006. Morgan, who was diagnosed as a
paranoid schizophrenic, died after lapsing into a coma on the floor of her
jail cell at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility about six weeks after
being arrested for shoplifting. Morgan, 38, who was imprisoned for six weeks
without a preliminary hearing, died at Riddle Memorial Hospital. Delaware
County Medical Examiner Fredric N. Hellman ruled Morgan’s death was caused by
complications from a hypothyroid condition, which was not treated during her
incarceration. Morgan’s family filed the civil suit in 2007 against the GEO
Group that operates the county prison, Delaware County Board of Prison
Inspectors and several physicians, among others. The suit alleges her death
was the result of the prison’s failure to treat her thyroid condition.
Morgan’s family is seeking unspecified damages. Paneque testified that
Morgan, who was housed in the prison’s infirmary, told him of her psychiatric
history, but did not say anything about her medical condition. He said Morgan
refused to take her psychiatric medication, not uncommon for paranoid
schizophrenics. “I cannot force medication against their will unless there is
imminent danger to her self or others,” said Paneque, who was hired by the
GEO Group to provide psychiatric services to inmates. Morgan, he said, did
not appear to be a danger to anyone. Testimony by Paneque and Dr. John
Fraunces, a retired prison psychologist, painted a very sad picture of a
mentally ill woman behind prison bars. Both said that since most mental
hospitals were shuttered years ago, prisons have become the mental hospital
of last resort. “It’s a lot cheaper to house a person in a prison than a
state mental hospital,” said Fraunces. Dr. William Purner, the current
medical director of the prison, said he was the acting medical director
working part time in March 2006 when Morgan was incarcerated. Purner
testified he never saw Morgan as a patient at the prison. It was only after
she was brought to Riddle, where he was on staff, that he treated her as a
patient. It was then, Purner said, he got Morgan’s medical history from her
family. Purner testified that as a prison physician, he is not permitted to
solicit information about a prisoner’s medical history. James F. Mundy,
attorney for the plaintiffs, questioned Purner about a two-week period during
which Morgan’s vital signs were not taken. “Was that routine procedure?” he
asked. “That’s not a standard of care of any individual under any condition,”
Purner replied. “No medical doctor ever examined Cassandra Morgan during the
entire six weeks Cassandra Morgan was at the prison?” Mundy asked. “I found
no notes to that effect,” Purner stated. Mundy also reviewed documents that
indicated the prison nursing staff believed Morgan’s condition was
deteriorating. On March 21, eight days before Morgan died,
a nurse wrote in the infirmary log that her body temperature was 92.7
degrees. Purner testified that if he had seen that temperature, he’d have
asked a nurse to take it again. He added that it is possible the notation was
an error. After that entry, there is a 12-hour gap in the log as the records
are missing, something Purner acknowledged.

October
15, 2008 Philadelphia Daily News
A lawyer for the family of Cassandra "Sandy" Morgan, a mentally ill
woman who died two years ago after having been held for five weeks in the
Delaware County prison, asked a jury yesterday to give Morgan the
"justice she never received from" prison officials and doctors who
worked for the prison. Morgan, 38, died in Riddle Memorial Hospital on March
29, 2006, four days after she lapsed into a coma at the prison. She died as a
result of complications caused by hypothyroidism, a condition in which the
thyroid gland doesn't produce enough of certain important hormones. Morgan's
family filed suit in federal district court in July 2007, alleging that her
death resulted from the prison's failure to give her medication for the
thyroid problem and to follow its own rules. The family is seeking
unspecified damages. The trial is expected to last two weeks.

October
7, 2008 Philadelphia InquirerSandy Morgan didn't have a receipt when she walked out of the Boothwyn
Wal-Mart with more than $500 worth of dolls, toys and girls' clothes. In her
mind, she didn't need one. She owned Wal-Mart, she
told a manager who tried to stop her. Sandy knew things others didn't. She
knew she owned many stores and she knew the television transmitted demons.
She took care to protect her family: She threatened the demons with knives
and a broken mop handle; she threw away food she was sure was poisoned. It
was a strain, fighting things no one else saw. Once her sisters watched as
Sandy wandered into the street and looked up at the sky. She asked God to
take her. But that February afternoon in 2006, it was the police who took
Sandy. Arrested for shoplifting, the 38-year-old college graduate from Aston
was ordered held on $10,000 bail and taken to the Delaware County jail.
Within the first hours of Sandy's incarceration, a physician's assistant
guessed she might be mentally retarded. Within a day, a doctor diagnosed her
as schizophrenic. Within eight days, a psychiatrist declared her incompetent
to stand trial. While the court waited for a competency report, Sandy waited
in jail. For five weeks, she saw no visitors. She never went outside. She hid
under covers and stared at the walls. She went two weeks without a shower
because the nurses were afraid to go near her. "Time to get out!"
Sandy told a nurse after a week in jail. After two weeks, "Are you here
for Jesus?" After a month, "Is [that] a horse over there?" If
a local hospital hadn't released Sandy from its psychiatric ward weeks
earlier, she might not have been arrested. If she had threatened to kill the
Wal-Mart employees, or herself, the police could have taken her to a
hospital. If jail officials had called Sandy's family, they might have known
what was wrong when she collapsed in her cell, her arms and legs flailing,
her body cold. But Sandy wasn't lucky like that. A grim diagnosis -- Later,
Sandy's story would come out slowly, in dozens of depositions, after her
family sued the jail, the company that runs it, and the hospital that
released her weeks before her arrest. There would be many sides to the tale,
a tangle that a jury is scheduled to work out next week. But it started in
1985, when Sandy was 17 and heading off to York College. That's when her
family noticed something was wrong. The sixth of seven children, Cassandra
"Sandy" Morgan had been a bright, fearless child with a vivid
imagination. She excelled in school, played field hockey, ran track, and
loved writing and singing contests. She wanted to be a nurse. But the summer
after she graduated from Chester High School, she became afraid. She told her
younger sister, Erika, that someone was trying to break into their house. In
her dorm room, she saw spiders crawling on the walls. Sandy's brother James,
seven years her senior, was a rookie in the York Police Department in 1986
when he received a call from campus that Sandy had been raped. He rushed to the
hospital. But doctors found no evidence of assault. After prolonged
questioning and numerous tests, they diagnosed Sandy, then 18, with paranoid
schizophrenia. They prescribed Haldol, a psychotropic drug. Sandy tried to go
back to school, but the hallucinations drove her home to her mother and
sisters Erika and Jamie. She wrote poetry about her struggle to hold on to
her dreams that was published in an anthology in 1988. At home, Sandy found
purpose in caring for her diabetic mother, who was bedridden. Willie Mae
Morgan needed insulin shots, which all three sisters helped to administer.
Sandy often bathed her mother and helped prepare her meals. The regular
schedule helped Sandy remember when to take her medications. She stayed
active. She played piano and attended church. She tried to teach herself how
to speak Chinese. Sandy eventually returned to school, attending class part
time until graduating from Neumann College in 1999 with a bachelor's degree
in liberal arts. Her whole family went to her commencement. Erika, three
years her junior, watched Sandy smile for the
cameras, "chest pumped out and posing." A mind unravels -- In March
2003, Sandy's mother died of pancreatic cancer. Sandy was devastated. She
stopped eating. She slept fitfully. She refused her medications - not just
the Haldol, but the Synthroid doctors had prescribed two years earlier for
hypothyroidism. The condition was easily manageable with drugs, but if
untreated, it could lead to coma, even death. Without her mother to care for,
the hours and days fell out of a recognizable pattern. Without her
medication, her hallucinations and delusions flourished. "God is talking
to me," she told Erika and Jamie, who also still lived in their mother's
house on Jennifer Lane. "Come with me to see God and the angels."
She thought the family dog was the devil. Her sisters caught her choking it.
She worried that Satan had taken over her family and would harm her nephews
and nieces. Once she chased Erika down a hallway with an 8-inch butcher
knife, screaming, "Who are you?" Her family sent her to
Crozer-Chester Medical Center 13 times in three years, committing her against
her will to the psychiatric ward. They wanted the old Sandy back, and they
hoped the doctors could persuade her to take her medicine. But five, 20, even
90 days in the hospital never seemed to be enough. Each time she returned
home, Sandy's interactions with the world in her mind became more
frightening. On Jan. 19, 2006, Sandy's sisters heard a loud crash. They ran
to the kitchen and saw Sandy break a mop handle across her hip. She swung the
broken sections ather sisters, saying, "Demons get out, demons get
out!" Jamie and Erika called the police, who took Sandy to
Crozer-Chester, where orderlies stood by ready to restrain her. A social worker
noted that Sandy was "psychotic, paranoid, refusing antipsychotic
medication, and a danger to herself and others." Crozer-Chester asked
permission to hold Sandy for up to 90 days for treatment, which the Delaware
County court granted. In his reports, Rommel Rivera, Sandy's attending
psychiatrist, said she should be forced to take her psychotropic medication.
On her first day there, she was given an injection of Geodon. She later
agreed to take Risperdal, Klonopin and injections of Haldol. But that wouldn't
last. Rivera suggested that Sandy's frequent hospitalizations showed she
might need more help. He suggested sending her to Norristown State Hospital.
She could be held at the psychiatric hospital for more than 90 days - long
enough, her family hoped, to get her back on her meds. A social worker met
with Sandy and her sisters on Jan. 26 to discuss Norristown. Sandy, who had
become less agitated after the injections, agreed to go if she could take her
keyboard and her Bible. The three sisters hugged one another tightly. Sandy smiled, something Jamie and Erika hadn't seen her do in a
while. "You are finally going to get the help that you need," Jamie
told her. But four days after the family meeting, another psychiatrist, Usha
Kotihal, inexplicably took over Sandy's care – a change neither doctor was
later able to explain. Kotihal determined that Sandy's mental state had
improved and that she no longer posed a threat to herself or others, she
later testified in a deposition. She gave Sandy a 100-milligram injection of
Haldol decanoate - a long-acting drug with a half-life of three weeks - and
sent her home on Feb. 7, 2006. Erin King, Sandy's case manager, later
testified that she couldn't believe it. During the car ride home, Sandy was
laughing and talking to the voices in her head. "What's so funny?"
King remembered asking her. "Wanna let me in on the joke?"
"No," Sandy said. Nine days later, Sandy, convinced she owned
Wal-Mart, was arrested. Hospital or jail? More than 70 percent of the
patients in state psychiatric hospitals suffer from schizophrenia.
Mental-health officials often struggle to get patients adequate treatment,
given the national trend away from institutions and toward residential care.
Without medication, schizophrenics relapse within six weeks, on average, said
Amy Brodkey, a psychiatrist who directed the mental-health court at Eastern
Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute for six years. "It affects people's
thinking, it affects their emotion, their cognition," Brodkey said.
"The prognosis is still not good." Under state law, a person must
pose a "clear and present danger" of bodily harm to himself,
herself or others within the last 30 days to be committed to a hospital. Many
wind up in jail, as police officers decide what to do with someone who broke
the law but is not necessarily dangerous. A conundrum -- At the police
station, Detective Tom McNichol and another officer asked Sandy to empty her
pockets and sit on a bench outside the station's three cells. As McNichol
called her house, Sandy asked for her Bible back. Later, McNichol testified
that he called Jamie, who told him that Sandy was supposed to be going to the
hospital. She gave him a number to contact Erin King. According to McNichol,
Jamie told him Sandy was no longer welcome at home. "What are we
supposed to do with her?" McNichol said he asked. "I don't care
what you do with her," Jamie said, according to McNichol. Jamie denies
that. In her testimony, she said she didn't know of Sandy's arrest until she
heard a message the police left on her answering machine later that night.
She testified that she did not go to the station to see her sister because it
was late. McNichol called King. Could she pick Sandy up and have her
committed to the hospital? King told him it wasn't possible. Sandy wasn't a
threat to herself or others, so she could not be committed against her will.
"We can't release her to the streets," McNichol recalled thinking.
The police charged Sandy with retail theft, defiant trespass (she'd been
warned previously not to bother employees at the Wal-Mart), and disorderly
conduct. During her video arraignment, Sandy told Judge Stephanie Klein,
"I'm the boss. I'll put you in jail," McNichol said in an
interview. The prosecutor wrote "crazy" on her copy of the charges.
Klein ordered a competency evaluation and set bail at $10,000. Sandy was then
taken to the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Thornton, southwest of Media, the state's only privately operated jail. Ten
thousand dollars is a high bail for a retail theft charge for someone with no
arrest record, Montgomery County chief public defender Stephen Heckman said.
"If she had no mental-health issues, she would not have gone to jail.
Not for retail theft," Heckman said. "It's almost doing them a
favor . . . it may be the quickest route to treatment." A question of
competence -- The Delaware County jail, a 1,883-bed facility, is required by
contract to adhere to basic national medical guidelines. Upon arrival,
inmates are typically given a physical and mental-health evaluation and
tested for communicable diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV. When Sandy
arrived, she told the corrections officers she was innocent. When she
struggled, two officers wrestled her to the ground and handcuffed her,
according to jail logs. The officers took Sandy to a physician's assistant,
Lisa Black, who asked Sandy about her medical history. Sandy appeared
confused and was combative, she noted. Black asked Sandy whether she was
taking medication or under the care of a doctor. No, was the answer. Had she
ever had high blood pressure, diabetes or a psychiatric disorder? No. Had she
been hospitalized for an emotional or nervous problem? "None of your
business," Sandy said, according to Black's intake form and testimony.
Black decided Sandy was mentally retarded or mentally ill; she later said she
believed Sandy was unable to tell her what her diagnosis was. Jail medical
officials depend almost exclusively on inmates to tell them about their
health. At the Delaware County jail, the medical staff is not required to
check out inmates' medical histories. Inmates can decline medical care.
Whether an inmate is mentally capable to help manage his or her medical care
is for jail staff to decide. According to the policies of the GEO Group Inc.,
which ran the jail, mentally unstable inmates should be transported
immediately to a hospital. But finding beds can be difficult. Not dangerous
enough -- Black assigned Sandy to a room in the infirmary on suicide watch,
figuring she was mentally ill, she later testified. Officers looked in on
Sandy every 15 minutes to make sure she wasn't hurting herself and had not
fallen ill. The next day, Sandy admitted to psychiatrist Grato Paneque that
she had been on medication. When Paneque visited again four days later, Sandy
said she had been hospitalized, according to Paneque's records. Sandy did not
say she had schizophrenia, but the psychiatrists who visited her during her
first days in jail gathered as much and prescribed Risperdal. Sandy did not
mention her hypothyroidism. The last time she is known to have taken her
Synthroid prescription was on Feb. 2 at Crozer-Chester. Even in the last five
days of her hospital stay, she refused it. None of the psychiatrists or
medical staff who met with Sandy at the jail called her family to determine
what medications she was taking. No one contacted the doctors who had treated
her at Crozer-Chester, where she had been hospitalized more than a dozen
times. The county employs two mental-health liaisons at the jail to help
inmates, yet jail officials say they had no contact with Sandy's caretakers
in the infirmary. Sandy's brother James and three of her sisters said they
called the jail to find out what was happening. Lisa and Jamie Morgan
testified that they told a jail social worker about Sandy's thyroid
condition. They hoped that once Sandy was declared incompetent to stand
trial, she would be transferred to Norristown State Hospital. Sandy's
caseworker, Erin King, indicated in her phone log that on Feb. 23 she spoke
with Kirk Benson, a mental-health liaison at the prison. King said she told
him that Sandy had schizophrenia and suffered from hypothyroidism. Benson
testified that he didn't remember speaking to King. A counselor arranged for
James Morgan to talk to his sister. "I don't belong here," Sandy
told him. "I know," James remembers telling her. "I'm working
on it." James continued to call Sandy's public defender for updates.
None of her family members posted the $1,000 it would have cost to bail Sandy
out of jail. James said he thought he needed the full $10,000. His sisters
said they didn't ask about bail because they did not understand the process.
They did not try to see Sandy, either, because they thought inmates in the
infirmary could not have visitors. A psychiatrist the county hired evaluated
Sandy on Feb. 24 and determined that she was not competent to stand trial. It
took several weeks for the report to be transcribed and sent to her public
defender, a delay that is not uncommon. Meanwhile, Sandy became more
withdrawn and hostile. She hid under blankets in her cell. She fought nurses
who tried to take her vital signs. They wrote "caution" next to her
name in infirmary logs. One nurse said that Sandy was sometimes
"wild-looking." During 59 nursing shifts, Sandy's vitals were
recorded only 17 times. Nursing notes say she would ask for showers and was
"malodorous," but was denied because she was too hostile. Records
show she showered just four times in five weeks. On Feb. 26, a nurse wrote in
the infirmary log, "needs 302," referring to the state
mental-health law that allows for a person to be hospitalized against his or
her will. The next day, and again on March 2, nurses noted "302?"
On March 21, a nurse wrote that Sandy was getting worse and refusing
medication. On March 22, a nurse scribbled, "Wrote in toothpaste,
delusional," and "psychotic, poor impulse control." Two days
later, Michael Harper, another public defender, petitioned the court to have
Sandy transferred to Norristown State Hospital. All things considered,
Sandy's case was moving along quickly, Harper said. "A two-month
turnaround is about the best we can do," he later testified. But for
Sandy, it wasn't fast enough. Unexplained collapse -- The next day, March 25,
Officer Rasheeda Hackett walked past Sandy's cell about 3:15 a.m. and saw her
gripping the sink, her legs shaking. Then she fell. By the time a nurse
reached her, Sandy was convulsing. She bit her tongue. Her eyes were open,
looking to the right. She was incontinent. Sandy had no history of seizures.
When she stopped flailing, she was put on a stretcher and taken to another
room in the medical wing. Black, the physician's assistant who had placed
Sandy in the medical wing five weeks earlier, administered Dilantin, an
antiseizure drug. No one contacted the doctor on call that night or dialed
911. Instead, medical staff took Sandy's blood pressure, pulse and heart and
respiration rate. Ammonia revived her somewhat, but she did not respond to
pain or to her name. Seizures in an adult not known to have a history of them
should be treated as an emergency, said Christopher Rees, an attending
physician in the emergency department at Pennsylvania Hospital. The patient
should be immediately taken to a hospital to determine what caused the
seizure and whether it stopped, he said. About 4:15 a.m., a nurse noticed
that Sandy's pupils were not responding to light, indicating possible brain
death. "It means you're dying or dead," Rees said. "That's the
end." But the jail medical staff didn't call 911 until 4:42 a.m., an
hour and a half after Sandy collapsed. In the ambulance, Sandy had another
seizure. When she arrived at Riddle Memorial Hospital, her body temperature
had dropped to 82.8 degrees. Machines kept her alive for four days while her
family gathered to say goodbye. Before the hospital disconnected Sandy,
before her organs were harvested for transplant, James sat next to his sister
and wept. He hugged her, stroking her hand and her face. "I'm so
sorry," he told her. A long deterioration -- The autopsy revealed that
Sandy died from profound hypothyroidism with probable myxedema coma, an end
stage of hypothyroidism that causes a firm swelling in body tissues. About
half of the people who develop myxedema coma die, said David Cooper, director
of the Johns Hopkins Thyroid Clinic. Hypothyroidism means the thyroid gland
does not produce enough hormone to maintain body
functions at a normal pace. It is one of the most common conditions in
internal medicine, said Stephen Rosen, chief of endocrinology at Pennsylvania
Hospital. The condition usually results when the immune system mistakenly
attacks the thyroid gland. In the days leading to Sandy's death, her heart
rate must have slowed and her blood pressure may have dropped, Cooper said.
She likely started breathing more slowly. Her voice may have lowered or
become hoarse as her larynx became engorged from the swelling. Her
extremities were probably cold to the touch as her body shifted blood flow to
preserve her vital organs, Rosen said. Four days before Sandy collapsed, a nurse recorded her temperature at 92.7
degrees, according to jail records. The nurse, Maureen Hoffman, testified
that it was a transcription error. But Cooper, who is not involved in Sandy's
case, said hypothyroidism takes a long time to kill, probably longer even than
the five weeks Sandy was in jail. A check of Sandy's vital signs should have
indicated to nurses that something was wrong. "I can guarantee you her
temperature was not normal the day before," he said. "I can
guarantee you it was not normal a week before." Body temperature that
drops to 95 degrees or lower is a red flag, Rosen said. Suicide-watch logs
kept by jail officers who looked in on Sandy every 15 minutes are missing for
the final three days she was at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility.
Records listing the drugs Sandy was offered are missing for March, legal
documents show. Wide-reaching suit -- In July 2007, Sandy Morgan's family
filed a lawsuit in federal court against several jail staff, Delaware County,
Crozer-Chester Medical Center, Usha Kotihal, and GEO. In August, GEO
announced that, in part due to the high cost of litigation, it would end its
involvement at the jail at the end of the year. The lawsuit is set to go to
trial next week. Harold Goodman, the lead attorney representing the Morgan
family, accuses Kotihal of "abandoning" Sandy, discharging her
without proper prescriptions, a post-treatment plan, or a call to the family
explaining why she was not being sent to the state hospital. Morgan's family
argues that the jail was ill-prepared to care for their sister and should
have sent her to a mental-health facility. Amalia Romanowicz, a lawyer
representing Kotihal and Crozer-Chester, declined to comment. In her court
motions she argued that Kotihal and the hospital did what was required of
them by law: They treated Sandy until she was no longer a threat to herself
and others. Kotihal, in her deposition, said that although Sandy was still
showing signs of psychosis upon discharge, she had returned to her "base
line." In their court motions, lawyers for the GEO Group and jail staff
dispute the cause of death, saying that Sandy showed no signs of medical
distress until she collapsed. They said it was her and her family's
responsibility to inform them of her thyroid condition. Suicide watch -- Throughout
Sandy's 38-day incarceration, corrections officers looked into her cell every
15 minutes and noted her activities using codes. On the morning of Feb. 25,
Sandy was Code 2, "yelling or screaming." On March 5, she walked
around for much of the afternoon, singing, cursing, and talking to herself.
But most times, officers looked in to see that Sandy, who had only a
toothbrush and a Bible in her cell, wasn't doing anything. During entire
eight-hour shifts, officers noted Sandy was Code 8, standing still, or Code
10 and 11, sitting or lying quietly in bed. Sandy Morgan, who was dangerous
enough to be locked up in jail on suicide watch but not dangerous enough to
be sent to a hospital, died in front of officers who checked her every 15
minutes of each day.

September
19, 2008 APA wrongful-death lawsuit can proceed against doctors and a private prison
where a schizophrenic woman collapsed and later died after weeks in the
infirmary, a federal judge ruled. Meanwhile, the company that runs the nearly
1,900-bed Delaware County Prison near Philadelphia is ending its 12-year
management of the site, citing frequent litigation and higher-than-expected
costs. At least six of the prison's inmates have died of unnatural causes or
questionable circumstances since 2001, according to news accounts. They
include the April death of comedian Kenneth Keith Kallenbach, a Howard Stern
sidekick who died of complications from cystic fibrosis at age 39. The prison
is run by the Geo Group Inc., formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections Corp.,
which runs about 50 corrections and immigration sites in the United States.
In the latest wrongful-death case, U.S. District Judge Berle M. Shiller ruled
this month that a jury could find the prison's contract doctors, along with a
hospital doctor and others, negligent in the care of Cassandra Morgan.
Morgan, 38, had a long history of schizophrenia and also suffered from a
serious thyroid condition. She was hospitalized at Chester-Crozer Medical
Center in early 2006 and was scheduled to be transferred to a state
psychiatric hospital, but was instead discharged by Dr. Usha Kotihal despite
evidence she would not voluntarily take her medication, the ruling said. In
discharge papers, Kotihal noted that Morgan was uncooperative, angry and
delusional, according to the suit. Days later, Morgan was arrested for
shoplifting at a Wal-Mart. "Cassandra was under a delusion that she
owned the Wal-Mart," the suit states. Morgan was brought to the prison
on about Feb. 16 and housed in the infirmary because of her apparent mental
illness. Although she did not acknowledge her medical history or take the
anti-psychotic medication prescribed, prison medical staff failed to
adequately evaluate and treat her, the suit charges. One prison doctor upped
her dosage in the hope that "she would come around," even though
she wasn't taking the lower dose, the suit alleges. The suit also alleges
that family members called repeatedly to try to inform prison officials of
her medical conditions, but were not able to get the information to the
medical staff. On March 25, she collapsed and started seizing. More than 90
minutes later, she was taken to a hospital, where her body temperature was
recorded as 82.8 degrees, the judge found. With thyroid hormones 14 times
normal levels, she was judged to be in a hypothyroid-related coma. She never
regained consciousness and was taken off life support four days later, the
ruling said. "Obviously, we're pleased that after months of discovery,
the judge has cleared the way for us to begin trial," said lawyer Harold
Goodman, who represents the family. The case is set for trial on Oct. 14.
Lawyer Carolyn Short, who represents the Geo Group Inc., declined comment.
Lawyer Amalia V. Romanowicz, who represents Kotihal and the hospital, did not
immediately return a message Thursday. Goodman also represents Kallenbach's
mother, who has blamed her son's death on inadequate prison medical care.
Kallenbach had been arrested on a child-luring charge. A separate pending
lawsuit accuses the Geo Group of routinely strip-searching minor offenders at
the Delaware County Prison, in violation of court rulings that ban the
practice unless there is reason to suspect they are hiding contraband. The
Geo Group had 2006 revenues of $860 million.

September
3, 2008 Delco TimesThe Delaware County Board of Prison Inspectors spent 90 minutes in a
"lively" executive session Tuesday morning "identifying,
assessing and reviewing" options in the wake of the GEO Group Inc.'s
decision to pull up stakes by year's end, said Acting Prison Superintendent
John Reilly. The GEO Group, formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp., is the
private, for-profit company that has been running the county-owned George W.
Hill Correctional Facility in one form or another since 1995. The company announced
in a release Friday it would cease operations there on Dec. 31. With the
holiday weekend, Tuesday was the first opportunity the board had to go over
its options - essentially whether to engage another private provider, revert
to operating the jail on its own or form some hybrid of the two. "That
is going to be the best-kept secret in Delaware County for awhile," said
Reilly. "The board has a direction and we're going to proceed - at least
in the short term - in this direction, and I don't believe we should be
discussing it publicly because it might impact negotiating strategies."
Which at least suggests there is someone the board could potentially
negotiate with, but Reilly was sticking with the "identified, assessed
and reviewed" line. Executive sessions are not open to the public and
little was initially revealed on Tuesday's extensive discussions. Reilly did
say the board hoped the short-term phase would near completion by its next
public meeting Sept. 17, but isn't setting any rigid timelines. Tuesday's
meeting also reportedly culminated in a conference call with GEO Group Inc.
President and Chief Operating Officer Wayne Calabrese. According to GEO's
release Friday, the Concord facility is the only local county jail the
company manages. Though it generates about $38 million in annual operating
revenues, GEO Chairman and Chief Executive Officer George C. Zoley said his
company would cease management of the 1,883-bed jail "due to financial
underperformance and frequent litigation." Reilly said in its letter to
the county, GEO also cited "higher-than-average workers' compensation
claims" as a reason for pulling out of the local prison market. Reilly
estimated the facility constituted about 70 percent of GEO's corporate
litigation expenses, so it was unexpected it would pull out, but not entirely
surprising. GEO and the prison board signed an $80 million, two-year contract
extension last year that was set to expire Dec. 31, 2009. Prison board
Solicitor Bob Diorio said GEO was able to leave before that date without
penalty because of an escape clause that allows either party to give 120 days
notice.

August
30, 2008 Philadelphia Daily NewsRunning the George W. Hill Correctional Facility is a tough job. So
tough, in fact, that the GEO Group is walking away from a $40-million-a-year
contract to operate Delaware County's 1,883- bed prison. Buried under a
mountain of lawsuits - with another high-profile wrongful-death suit imminent
- the Florida-based company announced yesterday that it's leaving the county
lockup a year before its contract expires at the end of 2009. "I just
think they're losing money here," said the prison's acting
superintendent, John Reilly Jr., who oversees GEO's performance on the
county's behalf. The company's chief executive, George C. Zoley, said in a
statement yesterday that "financial underperformance and frequent
litigation" drove the decision. Formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp.,
GEO has been running the prison in Thornbury Township since 1996. State Rep.
John Perzel, R-Phila., is on GEO's board of directors. Reilly said GEO has
done a "better than adequate job," while saving Delaware County
taxpayers millions of dollars. But the company also has been a near-constant
source of negative headlines. A former K-9 officer at the jail pleaded guilty
last month to having sex with an inmate in his pickup truck at a nearby grist
mill, and a corrections officer admitted in court that same week to sending a
fraudulent letter to the state parole board so her boyfriend - a convicted
murderer - could move in with her. Another GEO guard pleaded guilty last year
to conspiracy to commit bank robbery; the prison's former work-release
supervisor is a registered Megan's Law sex offender, and the warden was fired
last winter. The family of comedian Kenneth Keith Kallenbach, 39, the
longtime member of Howard Stern's "Wack Pack" who died in April
while in prison custody, is planning to sue GEO, alleging that prison medical
staff failed to treat his cystic fibrosis. The county prison board will hold
an emergency closed-door session Tuesday to assess its options, which include
returning management of the prison to the county government.

July
30, 2008 Delco Times
A former guard at Delaware County prison pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge
that he had sex with a 25-year-old female inmate while he was employed at the
facility. Michael Waters, 37, of the 200 block of South Church Street,
Clifton Heights, stood beside defense attorney Ronald Smith as he admitted to
a charge of institutional sexual assault. Deputy District Attorney Michael
Galantino said the offense carries a maximum of seven years in jail, but
under the state's recommended guidelines, Waters could receive a probationary
sentence up to nine months in prison. "I will be seeking a sentence of
three to 23 months in jail," said Galantino. Waters will remain free on
$2,500 bail pending sentencing set for Oct. 21. Acting Prison Superintendent
John Reilly Jr. said Waters was employed with the GEO group that has managed
the prison since Nov. 16, 1998. He was earning $16 an hour at the time he was
terminated in March, after the charges surfaced, said Reilly. Reilly termed
the crime "a horrific lapse in judgment." Waters is the second
employee of the GEO group to enter a plea this week. Nytara Hall, 30, who also
was employed by GEO, pleaded guilty to a forgery charge Tuesday and lost her
prison post. Galantino said the inmate, who told investigators about her
sexual trysts with Waters, is now out of jail. The prosecutor said she was
aware of the terms of the plea when the defendant waived his preliminary
hearing in April and nothing has changed since then. "There was no
allegation of force," said Galantino. The law provides that a person
employed at a correctional institution commits a crime if there is sexual
intercourse with an inmate or detainee. Senior Judge William R. Toal Jr.
delayed sentencing to allow time for Waters to undergo a state-mandated
evaluation to determine if he fits the criteria to be classified as sexually
violent offender. Waters was arrested after the female, who was an inmate at
the time, told authorities she was on work release and she and Waters would
hook up off prison grounds. She told investigators she first met Waters while
he was patrolling at the prison and she told him where she would be working
that day. He replied, "Maybe I'll stop by," according to a court
document. She said Waters picked her up on at least four occasions for sexual
trysts between Feb. 25 and March 20, according to the court document. She
said she and Waters had sex at least four times inside Waters' pickup truck.
Waters told authorities that afterward, he would take her to the SEPTA bus
stop at Cheyney Road and Route 1, where she would take the bus back to the
prison.

July
19, 2008 Philadelphia Inquirer
The comedian Kenneth Keith Kallenbach died of complications from cystic
fibrosis, according to an autopsy report released yesterday by the Delaware
County medical examiner. Kallenbach, 39, was best known as a member of the
"Wack Pack" on Howard Stern's radio show. He suffered from the
inherited disease and died April 24 at Riddle Memorial Hospital after being
transferred from the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Thornbury, where
he had been held since mid-March. After an autopsy in April, the medical
examiner said further investigation was needed to determine the cause of
death. Yesterday's report indicated the manner of death to be
"natural," brought on by cystic fibrosis with pneumonia and sepsis.
Kallenbach's family has alleged that he did not receive the proper medical
treatment for his condition while in the county prison and that his health
deteriorated dramatically. Kallenbach was arrested on a charge of attempted
child abduction. He denied any wrongdoing. A call to his mother, Fay
Kallenbach, yesterday was not returned. The family's attorney, Harold I.
Goodman of Philadelphia, said that the report confirmed what family members
suspected as the cause of death and that they are reviewing all records
before deciding whether to proceed with litigation. "Reading this report
along with prison records certainly suggests he did not get the degree of
care and treatment" needed, said Goodman. He said the prison was aware
of Kallenbach's condition and "wasn't properly treating him for
it." Kallenbach called home a week before his death asking his mother to
intervene and saying he didn't think he would "make it" in jail. A
message left for John C. Reilly Jr., acting superintendent at the prison, was
not returned. Since 2005, at least eight people have died at the Delaware County
facility, the state's only privately run jail.
Several of those deaths resulted in lawsuits by family members who said the
facility did not provide adequate medical care or proper supervision for
inmates. GEO Group, which runs the jail, operates prisons around the country.
Its operations in Texas have been criticized over poor conditions and the
treatment of some of its prisoners.

July
2, 2008 Philadelphia Daily News
A WEEK BEFORE Kenneth Keith Kallenbach died, the Delaware County comedian's
health had deteriorated so badly that prison officials tried to send him home
on "compassionate release." Kallenbach, 39, a longtime member of
Howard Stern's "Wack Pack" who suffered from cystic fibrosis, was
rapidly shedding weight while jailed on a parole violation. Even the Upper
Chichester cop who arrested him in March for allegedly trying to lure a
teenage girl into a car was shocked by his gaunt appearance at his
preliminary hearing April 15. "He looked bad," Officer Michael
Smalarz recalled last week. "I said, 'Kenny, man, you're really losing
weight.' " He was dying. But despite the
mid-April request that Kallenbach be released - a practice reserved for
seriously ill, nonviolent inmates - the county probation office insisted that
he stay in jail until he could undergo a psychosexual evaluation, according
to John Reilly Jr., acting superintendent at the George W. Hill Correctional
Facility. Delaware County Adult Probation and Parole Services refused to send
Kallenbach home, Reilly said, even though he was being held on a parole
violation from a prior DUI arrest - not on the attempted- kidnapping charge
involving a minor. Kallenbach's mother, Fay, already had posted bail on that
charge. It wasn't until the morning of April 24 that a county judge agreed to
rescind the warrant on the parole violation. Kallenbach had died a few hours
earlier at Riddle Memorial Hospital. "It was just too late," said
Fay Kallenbach, who intends to sue the prison for failing to treat her son's
cystic fibrosis, a chronic condition in which abnormally thick mucus builds
up in the lungs and digestive system. A painful memory -- He died more than
two months ago, but his mother still has trouble holding back the tears when
she recalls her final moments with her son in the hospital's intensive-care
unit. "He tried to open his eyes, and his eyes rolled back in his head
and he never regained consciousness," she said. "All I saw was skin
and bones. He had lost so much weight, he just looked emaciated. I held his
hand for a while and talked to him. Evidently, his brain was working but his
body had shut down." Reilly declined comment yesterday because of the
pending litigation, but in an interview shortly after the death he defended
Kallenbach's treatment. He said that Kallenbach was seen twice a day by a
nurse and had access to "all of his prescribed" medication and an
oxygen machine, but that he had been refusing treatment. An April 30 autopsy
performed by Delaware County Medical Examiner Frederic Hellman did not
immediately reveal a cause of death, and the tissue-analysis results have not
come back. Hellman initially had declined to conduct an autopsy, accepting
the determination by hospital clinicians that Kallenbach had died from
pneumonia and septic shock due to complications from cystic fibrosis. But he
decided to perform the examination after the family raised concerns about his
medical treatment. At that point, Kallenbach's body already had been embalmed
"We're in America," Fay Kallenbach said. "He shouldn't be
dying in jail from pneumonia when they knew he had cystic fibrosis."
Kallenbach posted $5,000 bail shortly after her son's March 17 arrest on
charges of harassment and attempted luring of a child. He was returned to
prison custody a week later, however, because the arrest, and the fact that
he had been driving a car without a breath- alcohol ignition interlock
device, violated his parole on an old DUI charge, Reilly said. "He
called me, and he was so weak I could hardly understand him," Fay
Kallenbach said. "He said, 'Mom, do whatever you can, please, to get me
out of here because I don't think I'm going to make it.' "
She blames the prison for her son's death, claiming that the medical
staff failed to treat his cystic fibrosis, but says that the probation
officials who kept him there are "equally responsible." She said he
had managed the chronic ailment by taking enzymes to help digest his meals
and by using a salt-water breathing machine at their Boothwyn home. Awaiting
information -- The family's attorney, Harold I. Goodman, said that he is
awaiting additional records before deciding whether to sue the county and the
GEO Group, a Florida-based firm that runs the prison. Goodman said that he
has notified both entities that his firm is investigating the matter. GEO
spokesman Pablo Paez declined to comment on the case. Reilly said a deputy
warden called the county probation department around April 17 and asked if
Kallenbach could be released due to medical reasons while he awaited a
hearing on the parole violation. The prison occasionally contacts judges,
prosecutors or probation officers to request "alternative
incarceration" for nonviolent inmates who are "gravely or seriously
ill," Reilly said in April. The practice - which also saves money
because the publicly funded prison is no longer responsible for expensive
medical care - typically is used for inmates such as
Kallenbach jailed on a probation or parole violation, rather than convicts
serving time, Reilly said. The request was denied, according to Reilly. Fay
Kallenbach still can't understand that. If a judge had set bail at 10 percent
of $50,000 on the more-serious criminal charges and determined that
Kallenbach was not a danger to the community, why wouldn't the probation
department let him out on house arrest when he became sick? "The whole
system just went against him," she said. Mark Murray, the deputy
director of Delaware County Adult Probation and Parole Services, who Reilly
said had blocked Kallenbach's release, declined to comment on the case.
Kallenbach - known for his cheesy rock songs, goofball antics on "The
Howard Stern Show" and the occasional movie cameo - was a notoriously
heavy drinker, but didn't have a history of violent crimes or sex crimes,
Upper Chichester Police Detective John Montgomery said. "He was picked
up a couple times for intoxication and stuff like that, but he wasn't viewed
as a dangerous criminal or anything - not until this latest incident, which
raised eyebrows," Montgomery said. Police say Kallenbach tried to pull a
teenage girl into his car on March 17. At his preliminary hearing,
Magisterial District Judge David Griffin held him for trial on all charges,
including attempted kidnapping. The case never made it to trial. Fay
Kallenbach said that her son was driving to the post office that afternoon
and yelled to a 16-year-old girl, " 'Hi, I'm Kenneth Keith,' because
everyone knew him in Boothwyn from TV commercials and appearances. He was
just friendly that way and would hand out his little business card he
had." She says that county officials treated her son as if he were
guilty of a sex crime by insisting on a psychosexual evaluation while he was
dying in jail. "He was accused of it, but he didn't have his day in
court," she said. "He was never convicted."

June
30, 2008 Delco TimesA former Delaware County prison guard has been charged with forging a
supervisor's signature in an attempt to convince state parole officials to
allow a convicted murderer to move in with her. Nytara Hall, 29, who was a
sergeant at the county prison, has been suspended without pay pending
termination, according to Prison Superintendent John Reilly. Hall, of the 700
block of South Juniper Street, Philadelphia, asked three prison officials on
May 9 to send a letter on her behalf to the Pennsylvania Probation and Parole
Board, according to the affidavit of probable cause written by county
Detective Thomas Worrilow. Hall allegedly told the prison officials that
George Kidd, her "Muslim husband," was being released from federal
prison. A letter from her employer, Delaware County prison, was needed if
Kidd was to reside with her, according to the affidavit. The letter was to
state that it was not a conflict and that she does not possess a firearm. The
same day she made her request, however, Hall sent the letter herself, and
forged the signature of a prison official, the affidavit states. Three days
later, Deputy Warden Mario Colucci received a call from a parole agent
questioning the authenticity of the faxed letter. The person whose signature
was on the fax denied writing or signing the letter, the affidavit states.
Prison officials questioned Hall about the letter as well as about her
"husband," since she was not married. Hall allegedly explained that
she was not legally married, but considered Kidd, who had been sentenced to
10-20 years for third-degree murder, her husband in a religious marriage. On
June 24, Worrilow interviewed Hall, who allegedly admitted she produced the
letter and faxed it to the parole board. She also admitted that the purpose
in doing so was to obtain parole for Kidd. Hall was arraigned on charges of
forgery and tampering with public records. She was released on $35,000
unsecured bail.

April
29, 2008 Philadelphia InquirerAn autopsy will be performed tomorrow on Kenneth Keith Kallenbach, a
39-year-old comedian who died Thursday after contracting pneumonia at the
Delaware County jail, where he was awaiting trial. Since 2005, at least eight
people have died at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility,
the state's only privately run jail. Several of those deaths resulted in
lawsuits by family members who say the facility did not provide adequate
medical care or proper supervision for inmates. Kallenbach suffered from
cystic fibrosis, an inherited chronic disease. He had been housed at the jail
since mid-March, when he was arrested on a charge of attempted child
abduction. He was taken to Riddle Memorial Hospital April 21, where he died.
Kallenbach's mother, Fay, said her son called her a week before his death,
asking her to intervene and help him receive better treatment. He said he
didn't think he would "make it" in the jail, she said. "He
managed [his condition] perfectly well at home," she said. "He was
only in there for about a month." The prison had no comment on
Kallenbach's death. GEO Group operates prisons around the country, and its
operations in Texas have been sharply criticized over poor conditions and the
treatment of some of its prisoners. At the Delaware County facility last
year, a woman who suffered from a thyroid condition died at the jail where
she had been held for six weeks. Family members said she did not receive her
medication during her incarceration. "There is an awful lot of
deliberate indifference to the medical needs" in the prison, said Harold
I. Goodman, a lawyer currently suing the company that operates the jail on
behalf of the woman's family. GEO did not comment on this case. In 2005, five
inmates died within a five-month span, drawing scrutiny from Delaware County
District Attorney Michael Green. Two men apparently committed suicide, one
died after a fist fight, another died of a heroin overdose, and another man
was found dead in his bed. No criminal charges were filed, but GEO Group has
settled lawsuits with several families who sued on behalf of their relatives.
In 2006, GEO paid $100,000 to the family of Rosalyn Atkinson, 25, who died in
2002 because of a fatal overdose of a high-blood pressure drug administered
by jail medical staff. Atkinson had been at the jail for only 18 days. GEO
also agreed in 2005 to pay $125,000 to the family of John Focht, 43, who used
his boot strings to hang himself in 2002. Jon Auritt, a Media lawyer who
handled both cases, is reviewing another case of inmate death that occurred
in October. David Dewees, who was in his 40s, died from what appeared to be a
seizure from hypoglycemic shock, Auritt said. Dewees suffered from diabetes
and had been at the jail only a few months at the time of his death, he said.
"They tried to save him once he went into this coma," Auritt said
yesterday. "I don't know whether or not there was anything they did or
could have done that could have changed things." A private forensic
pathologist is reviewing an autopsy of Dewees, and Auritt expects to
determine by the end of the summer whether to pursue the matter in court.
Angus Love, executive director of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project,
said the number of deaths in three years was exceptionally high. "I'm
suing Bucks County, and I don't think they've had any deaths in custody in
five years," he said. Love is suing the GEO Group on behalf of an
AIDS-infected inmate who allegedly did not receive his medications for more
than five months. He said a Delaware judge released the man from prison
early, citing the prison's failure to provide needed medicine. GEO, based in
Florida, also has been under fire in Texas, where it operates more than a
dozen correctional facilities. Last fall, the Texas Youth Commission abruptly
canceled its $8 million contract with GEO after investigators found
unsanitary living conditions at its juvenile facility. Several of the teens
said they were sexually assaulted by a guard who was a convicted sex
offender, according to lawsuits. GEO lost its contract at an adult facility
in west Texas last year after an inspector reportedly characterized the
prison as "the worst correctional facility I have ever visited."
The inspection was sparked by an inmate's suicide. Texas legislators have
called for a review of all of GEO's contracts with state and local agencies.
GEO spokesman Pablo Paez did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.
The Delaware County Board of Prison Inspectors, a group of five people who
oversee the contract with the jail and appoint the superintendent, agreed in
May 2006 to renew GEO's contract for another 19 months. The board members are
satisfied with GEO's performance, said Robert M. DiOrio, a Media lawyer who
acts as spokesman for the board. "The prison board is always concerned
about inmate deaths and very much regrets any death in the prison,"
DiOrio said. "Just because a family member in a distraught state
expresses culpability for a death doesn't necessarily mean at the end of the
day that the prison board or GEO is found to be liable." Fredric
Hellman, Delaware County medical examiner, said Kallenbach's death initially
did not raise any suspicions.. "The initial
information I was provided with on Thursday indicated that his death was due
to natural disease," he said. But he decided to perform an autopsy on
Kallenbach, who often appeared on Howard Stern's radio show, when
Kallenbach's mother raised questions about her son's treatment in jail.

April
25, 2008 APKenneth Keith Kallenbach, an actor, comedian and long-running member of
Howard Stern's "Wack Pack," has died in custody. He was 39.
Kallenbach, who was arrested in March for allegedly trying to lure an
underage girl into his car, contracted pneumonia at a prison outside
Philadelphia and died Thursday morning at a suburban hospital, his mother,
Fay Kallenbach, said Friday. Stern first reported the news on his Sirius
Satellite Radio show Thursday. The long-haired Kallenbach, whose goofball
antics included attempting to blow smoke from his eyes, made dozens of
appearances on Stern's show beginning in 1990. Stern once likened him to
MTV's Beavis and Butt-head and wrote in his 1993 book "Private
Parts" that Kallenbach was the "ultimate airhead." More
recently, Kallenbach, of Boothwyn, Pa., starred in commercials for ESPN's
"Monday Night Football" and Stride chewing gum. He also appeared on
Jay Leno's "Tonight" show on NBC and had uncredited parts in HBO's
"Sex and the City" and the Tom Cruise film "Jerry
Maguire." Kallenbach was arrested in Upper Chichester Township, Pa., in
mid-March on a charge of attempted child abduction. He had denied any
wrongdoing. His mother accused the Delaware County Prison of failing to
provide adequate medical care, saying her son, who had cystic fibrosis,
called her a few days before his death and begged her to intervene.
"They weren't treating him properly for his disease and this is how he
contracted pneumonia," Fay Kallenbach said. Pneumonia is a complication
of cystic fibrosis. Pablo Paez, spokesman for GEO Group Inc., the
Florida-based company that runs the prison, declined to respond to Fay
Kallenbach's allegation, citing privacy laws. He said Kallenbach had been
housed at the prison since March 27, and was taken to Riddle Memorial
Hospital near Media, Pa., on Monday. "We provide appropriate care for
all the inmates at the facility," Paez said.

March
26, 2008 Philadelphia Daily News
A K-9 officer at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility was charged
yesterday with multiple counts of institutional sexual assault for allegedly
taking an inmate to a nearby grist mill for sex in his pickup truck, Delaware
County authorities said. Michael Waters, 37, an employee of the GEO Group,
the Florida-based company that runs the county prison, admitted to having
oral and vaginal sex with the female work-release inmate, according to the
criminal complaint. The 25-year-old woman told detectives on Friday that
Waters, who became a K-9 officer last year, would pick her up from her job at
McDonald's and take her to the historic Newlin Grist Mill near the prison or
to the parking lot of the Springfield Mall for sex. Such relationships
between guards and inmates are prohibited by law - even if the sex is
consensual. "That is a felony of the third degree," said John
Reilly, the prison's acting superintendent. "It could be wholly
consensual, it could be a product of deep and abiding love, and it is still
the crime of institutional sexual assault." Waters, of Clifton Heights,
was hit with four counts of that crime yesterday and is expected to be
arraigned today in Concord District Court. His wife answered the door
yesterday at their Church Street home but declined comment. "It's a
tragic lapse of judgment," Reilly said of Waters' actions. Other GEO
employees at the Delaware County prison have experienced similar lapses in
recent years. The jail's former work-release supervisor, for instance, is
registered as a Megan's Law sex offender. Joseph Henderson, of the
Wissinoming section of Philadelphia, is currently on probation after pleading
guilty in 2006 to sexually assaulting a female inmate while transporting her
back to prison. Former guard Henry Myers pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy
to commit bank robbery. Myers, also of Philadelphia, was indicted in 2005 for
casing banks in three armed heists and was sentenced to three years in
prison. In 2004, a GEO lieutenant at the county prison was fired for beating
an inmate "to a pulp," as the then-warden put it, and two other
guards received probationary sentences after an inmate claimed in 2002 that
they handcuffed him, pummeled him with a basketball and pulled his pants
down. Reilly acknowledged that some GEO employees have previously had trouble
staying out of jail themselves, but said that he could not recall any new
incidents over the past couple of years - aside from Waters'.

January
31, 2008 AP
Court rulings prohibit routine strip searches of minor offenders, but a
privately run prison conducts them on all new inmates, a lawsuit charged. The
potential class-action suit, filed in federal court this week against The Geo
Group, involves a drunk-driving suspect who was strip-searched at a county
prison the firm manages near Philadelphia. "It's humiliating," lead
plaintiff Stephen D. Bussy, 53, said Thursday. Bussy, a home-health worker
and college graduate from Media, said he was strip
searched during intake last summer at the Delaware County Prison. A second
full-body search occurred during his four-month stay — he was unable to post
bail — in a shower littered with feces, the lawsuit states. The Geo Group,
previously known as Wackenhut Corrections Corp., does not comment on pending
litigation, spokesman Pablo Paez said Thursday. The company, with 2006
revenues of $860 million, manages 49 corrections and immigration facilities
in the United States, many of them in Texas and California. The firm, based
in Boca Raton, Fla., also operates a half-dozen
sites overseas. Bussy's lawyers are seeking to have his lawsuit apply to
possibly thousands of minor offenders who were stripped-searched at a Geo
Group-run prisons nationwide, but a judge must first grant class-action
status. More than a decade ago, a group of women protesting a pigeon shoot
were arrested and strip-searched in the Schuylkill County jail. The case led
to a precedential ruling in 1993 in which U.S. District Judge Franklin Van
Antwerpen wrote: "The feelings of humiliation and degradation associated
with being forced to expose one's nude body to strangers for visual
inspection is beyond dispute." Other federal courts, including the
Supreme Court, have issued similar guidelines. Authorities must have reason
to think a minor offender is hiding drugs or other contraband to search them,
civil rights lawyer say. This week's complaint mirrors similar class-action
suits filed around the country against government agencies. Authorities in
Camden County, N.J., last year agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle suit over
prison strip searches conducted between 2003 and 2005, while other suits are
pending in Philadelphia and Lancaster. "The rule appears to be at this
point, you can't have a blanket policy," said David Rudovsky, a
University of Pennsylvania law professor who represents Bussy. "You
would think that prison officials would be aware of it and would be
careful."

January
31, 2008 Philadelphia Inquirer
A team of lawyers with a record of winning class-action cases across the
country today hit the Delaware County prison and others across the country,
alleging that thousands of people were illegally strip- searched for minor
offenses. The federal lawsuit was filed against the Geo Group Inc., a Florida
company that runs the jail in Delaware County and numerous other states. The
suit listed a single plaintiff: Stephen Dimitri Bussy, 53, a home health-care
worker in Media who was strip-searched after a drunken driving arrest last
year. Bussy represents a class of people nationwide who were allegedly
victimized by strip-searches for minor offenses in Geo Group jails, the suit
says. The suit lists damages at $5 million, but lawyers say that is
considered to be a baseline figure for that type of class-action suit. The
Inquirer reported last month that three guards from Delaware County's George
W. Hill Correctional Facility said all prisoners entering the facility were
strip-searched - including people held for minor violations, such as failing
to make child support payments or those held because they could not pay
outstanding traffic tickets. The suit cited that Inquirer series and
mentioned the three guards' statements. Other jails and police lockups across
the state also followed the same strip-search practices, The Inquirer
reported. Since the series, legislators have called for improved police
training and some cities have already changed their policies. Federal judges
across the nation have ruled that blanket strip-search policies for people
arrested for minor crimes violate the U.S. Constitution's protection from
"unreasonable" search and seizure. Bussy, a University of
Massachusetts graduate, was arrested by Media police
on July 31, 2001, on charges of drunken driving, public drunkenness and
criminal trespass. The suit says Bussy could not post the required $500 bail
and was taken to the county jail, in Thornton, where he was strip-searched,
the suit said. "In connection with the strip search, plaintiff was
required to completely disrobe and lift his testicles. Plaintiff's anal
cavity was also visually inspected by a correction officer," it said.
Only Geo Group, which operates dozens of prisons across the nation, was named
in the lawsuit, although the suit listed "John Does 1-100" as
possible other people to be include in the future. Officials from Geo Group
could not immediately be reached for comment. In past interviews, Geo
spokesman Pablo Paez has declined to discuss the corporation's policy on
strip-searches. Some of the lawyers filing the suit have been working with a
group of attorneys that won a $7.5 million settlement from Camden County for
allegedly strip-searching thousands of people illegally in its prison. Two of
the lawyers, Christopher G. Hayes and Daniel C. Levin, also sued the
Philadelphia Corrections Department, seeking $15 million for allegedly
conducting more than 20,000 illegal searches. That suit is pending. Two other
lawyers involved in the new suit, Philadelphia's David Rudovsky and Joseph G.
Sauder, of Haverford, currently are involved in a class-action suit against
the Lancaster County prison for allegedly conducting thousands of illegal
searches there. "What's interesting against this one, we are suing Geo
Corporation," Rudovsky said in an interview after the suit was filed in
U.S. District Court in Philadelphia. "We've defined the class of inmates
who are in county or municipal jails. So it's a national class-action suit
that we're seeking." The lawyers are seeking class-action status for the
suit.

December
1, 2007 Philadelphia Daily News
The warden at Delaware County's prison was fired yesterday, but the multinational
corrections company that runs the tax-funded facility won't say why. Warden
Ronald Nardolillo was "reassigned" from the George W. Hill
Correctional Facility and left the prison grounds at about 11 a.m., according
to John Reilly, who, as acting superintendent, oversees the GEO Group's
performance there on behalf of the county. "My hope is they are doing
all that is necessary to determine what happened and how it can be prevented
from happening again," Reilly said of Nardolillo's dismissal. "He
didn't go gracefully," one prison guard, who asked not to be identified,
said of the outgoing warden. The Daily News reported Wednesday that
Nardolillo, who earned about $130,000 a year, had been in the county's
crosshairs for about 18 months amid frequent complaints from employees about
his harsh management style. The relationship between Nardolillo and the
county was further strained in recent weeks with the discovery of a racially
charged photograph aimed at the prison guards' union chief. A photo of Angelina
Blocker, who is black, with a noose around her head was found in a union
mailbox, setting off a GEO investigation. County officials called in
detectives following what Reilly described as Nardolillo's "clumsy"
handling of the situation. "Instead of facing the issue head-on, there's all kinds of games and machinations and
denials," Reilly said Tuesday. The source of the photograph has not been
determined, he said. GEO spokesman Pablo Paez, citing corporate policy,
declined to discuss the photograph or answer questions about why Nardolillo
was reassigned or where he is going. The Florida-based company has run the
prison since 1995, when county officials decided to privatize the operation
as a cost-saving measure. Its board members include state Rep. John Perzel,
R-Phila. The arrangement with GEO, which is unique among county prisons in
Pennsylvania, has saved the county millions in construction and operating
costs and protects the county from most lawsuits filed by inmates and their
families. But anti-privatization advocates condemn the practice, saying that
companies like GEO are ultimately accountable to their stockholders, not the
taxpayers. GEO has had its fair share of mishaps over the years in Delaware
County - including settling wrongful-death lawsuits, letting inmates walk out
because of mis-identification and firing several guards who committed serious
crimes of their own. County officials, however, say they are largely
satisfied with the company's performance and recently awarded it an $80
million contract extension that runs through 2009.

November
28, 2007 Philadelphia Daily News
The GEO Group, a multinational corrections company, will continue operating
Delaware County's prison through 2009 under the terms of an $80 million
contract extension announced yesterday. But the warden GEO hired in 2004 to
run the tax-funded facility might not make it through the end of the year,
according to prison sources. Warden Ronald Nardolillo's $130,000-a-year job
is in jeopardy amid a spate of complaints from his staff and county officials
who say his dictatorial style is causing frequent problems, the sources said.
The George W. Hill Correctional Facility has been run by the Florida-based
company since 1995, but Delaware County officials hold the purse strings and
have the final say on how it is run. And they want Nardolillo out. "The
issue here is a poor management climate, and it stems directly from his
deficiencies as a warden," said John Reilly, the acting superintendent
and top county official at the prison. "We don't believe we're getting
our money's worth from that position," he said. "We're not getting
$130,000 worth of effort. He doesn't have $130,000 worth of ability."
Formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp., GEO beat out two rival corrections companies
last year to maintain control of the lockup, one of the largest in its
international network. County officials who oversee the prison have been
dissatisfied with Nardolillo for the past 18 months and recently have been
"keeping him off to the side," dealing mostly with his staff,
Reilly said. "Not one day goes by that a GEO employee doesn't complain
to us about something that was said or done to him or her, or a friend of his
or hers, by the warden. It's constant," Reilly said. GEO spokesman Pablo
Paez declined to comment yesterday and Nardolillo did not return phone calls
yesterday or Monday. As Nardolillo, a former New York City police officer,
struggles to hold on to his job, GEO is trying to determine the source of a
racially charged photograph aimed at the the prison guards' union chief. The
picture, placed in a union mailbox several weeks ago, shows a noose drawn
around the head of Angela Blocker, who is black. Reilly said the incident is
evidence of continued mismanagement on Nardolillo's watch. "It's par for
the course. Instead of facing the issue head on, there's
all kinds of games and machinations and denials," Reilly said.

September
28, 2007 AP
Prison officials in Delaware County violated workplace discrimination laws
when they fired a Muslim nurse who insisted on wearing a head scarf on the
job, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charged yesterday. The
agency charged in a lawsuit that the Geo Group Inc., a private company that
operates the county prison in Thornton, refused to make religious accommodations
for Carmen Sharpe-Allen and other female Muslim employees. Sharpe-Allen, who
had a good performance record, was fired in December 2005 after a meeting
with warden Ronald Nardolillo, the suit said. The prison "has forced its
Muslim female employees to compromise their religious beliefs by removing
their khimars while on duty or risk termination," according to the
federal suit. The prison instituted the ban on head scarves in early 2005,
the suit said. Calls to the Florida-based Geo Group and to Nardolillo were
not immediately returned.

September
5, 2007 Daily TimesA nurse at George W. Hill Correctional Facility was recently put on
administrative leave for allegedly violating a prison policy forbidding
association or relationships with prisoners that would be “contrary to the
best interest of GEO (the private firm that runs the prison) or the safety or
security of the facility,” the Daily Times has learned. According to internal
documents, a licensed practical nurse was in contact with at least two inmates
via contraband mobile phones found in their cells. The nurse did not return
calls for comment; the Times is not identifying her
because she has not been charged with any crime. A DVR recording showed the
nurse, whose cell phone number was identified on both phones’ number storage
systems as “Baby Girl,” calling one of the prisoner’s phones from a fax
machine with working voice line located in the prison medical unit, according
to the documents. No one else was observed using the line, and the call time matched
that recorded by the prisoner’s phone, according to the report. The report
also notes the nurse’s personal cell phone number was listed among the stored
numbers in the contraband phones of two inmates. Neither inmate cooperated
with the investigation, according to the report. During the Aug. 10 search of
one cell on a tip, which turned up the first phone, officials also found
contraband allegedly including suspected marijuana, several cigarettes, a
phone charger, lighters and three pictures, two of which were a female later
identified as the nurse. A search of the other cell turned up a phone and
charger, plus three additional pictures “immediately identified as” the
nurse. The searches led Warden Ron Nardolito to authorize the investigation
that day into the possibility of an inappropriate relationship between the
nurse and an inmate, according to prison documents. The nurse was allegedly
contacted by telephone several times by prison officials, but ended the call
before any conversation took place. She was scheduled to work shortly
thereafter, but did not appear and was subsequently sent a letter informing
her she was on administrative leave and not permitted to report to work
without prior authorization from the human relations office. Prison Solicitor
Robert DiOrio confirmed the nurse had been suspended without pay pending the
conclusion of an investigation being conducted by GEO and the prison
supervisor’s office. Another internal document from the prison indicates U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Trish Pepe notified the prison Aug.
1 that Correctional Officer Saye Gartie had been arrested for immigration law
violations and is currently being held in York County Prison, pending
deportation. Neither Pepe nor GEO prison officials returned calls seeking
details on the arrest or background investigation techniques for potential
prison employees.

August
3, 2007 Delco Times
A guard at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility (Run by Geo Private
Prison) was arrested early Thursday, charged with attempting to lure two
teenage girls into his car, Chief John Finnegan confirmed Thursday night.
Samuel Willis, 32, of Glassboro, N.J., was arraigned on charges of stalking,
luring a child into a motor vehicle, harassment, disorderly conduct and
recklessly endangering another person. Magisterial District Judge Spencer B.
Seaton Jr. set bail at $100,000 cash at a preliminary arraignment. According
to Finnegan, Willis was arrested in the 2400 block of West Ninth Street by
officers Donald Jackson and Victor Heness, members of the city's newly
established curfew unit. Shortly before 1 a.m. Thursday, the officers
observed two young females as they were standing near a yellow Toyota Matrix
with New Jersey tags, according to the arrest affidavit. As the officers approached
the car, the driver flashed a badge and identified himself as a correction
officer. "Due to the age of the girls he was talking to, the two
officers decided to investigate further," police said. The girls, ages
15 and 16, appeared to be close to tears, officials said. The girls were
unharmed. According to the affidavit, the girls told police the driver had
followed them for about four or five blocks, driving behind them and asking
them to come over to his car. He told the girls he was a "nice guy."
Willis, who was wearing a prison guard uniform, allegedly told the girls he
was a guard and that he was looking for an escaped convict and he wanted
their help. When they continued to walk away his demeanor changed,
authorities said. "When the girls attempted to leave fearing for their
safety, he ordered them to stay and to listen to him," according to
authorities. One of the girls had a cell phone in her hand and was about to
dial 911 when the two officers arrived. According to officials, Willis had
been a guard at the county prison for 10 days. He had finished his shift 40
minutes before approaching the girls, police said. He allegedly told police
that he was on his way home from work and decided to pull over to the side of
the road to take a nap. Inside of Willis' car, police found a pair of
children's toy handcuffs, an emergency light, several badges, coloring books,
sticker books and stuffed animals.

July
25, 2007 Philadelphia EnquirerA mentally ill woman died last year after being held for six weeks in
Delaware County Prison without receiving medication for a thyroid condition,
according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court. The suit says the family
of 38-year-old Cassandra "Sandy" Morgan of Aston repeatedly
"attempted to contact" the privately operated county prison to
express concern over her mental condition and hypothyroid problem. The
family's lawyer, Harold I. Goodman, said the family had been "virtually
ignored." Morgan died in Riddle Memorial Hospital on March 29, 2006,
four days after lapsing into a coma at the prison. Her death resulted from
complications caused by hypothyroidism. She had been imprisoned after being
charged with shoplifting at the Wal-Mart in Upper Chichester on Feb. 16,
2006. James Morgan, her brother, said that the Public Defender's Office had
not returned his repeated calls for help, and that the prison had made no
attempt to contact them about his sister's medical condition. "At any
point in the system where she could have been saved and treated humanely,
there were lapses," said Goodman, of Philadelphia. The lawyer called the
case an "institutional failure" and a convenient way to get Morgan
off the streets. Michael Joseph Harper, the assistant public defender who
represented Morgan, said he had not heard from her family until she had been
hospitalized in a coma. "I returned those calls." Among defendants
in the lawsuit are the county, the prison, Crozer-Chester Medical Center in
Upland, and the Geo Group Inc., the Florida company that manages the prison. A
call to John Reilly, deputy superintendent of the George W. Hill Correctional
Facility - the county prison - was not returned yesterday. Robert DiOrio, the
lawyer for the prison, said he was not familiar with the case and would not
comment.

December
12, 2006 Delco TimesDelaware County officials say they are closing in on a small group of
crooked prison guards as they implement sweeping policy changes aimed at
ending the contraband trade at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility. The
goal, according to Deputy Superintendent John Reilly, is not just to slow the
influx of drugs, cigarettes and cellular phones, but "eradicate"
the prison’s black market altogether. Last month, the county Board of Prison
Inspectors unanimously voted to ban all tobacco products from the premises --
even within parked cars. While the measure was passed partly to clean up the
prison grounds and prevent employees from leaving their posts for frequent
smoke breaks, it is also designed to counteract what Reilly called a
relatively small group of "corrupt corrections officers" running a
lucrative contraband ring inside the Concord lockup. "We now know who
the players are," Reilly said, citing "phenomenal
intelligence" from inmates, their families and former guards. "It’s
just a question of following them every day, pursuing them every day and
getting rid of them," he said. Employees are currently permitted to
drive off the prison grounds to smoke a cigarette, but starting next month
they will be barred from leaving the facility’s secure perimeter once they
begin their shift -- whether it be a standard eight
hours or a 16-hour double. Exceptions will likely be made for medical
conditions. County officials hope the no-tobacco policy, combined with an
increased K-9 presence in the parking lots and daily shakedowns, will staunch
the smuggling of cell phones, cigarettes and drugs into the prison. Several
guards walking to their cars have turned around upon seeing drug-sniffing
dogs, Reilly said. Michael Pelleriti, president of the Delaware County Prison
Employees Independent Union, which represents the guards, said some members
have complained about the smoking policy. But he said the union had little
say because the county owns the property. Reilly said certain corrections
officers are using their female colleagues as "mules" to smuggle
contraband into the jail, usually by hiding it in a body cavity. Without
probable cause, a body cavity search is illegal. He said the GEO Group Inc.,
the Florida-based firm that has managed the publicly funded prison since
1996, is planning to implement a cell phone scanner to prevent such activity.
The company is also considering purchasing a body scanner -- which presents
an image similar to an X-ray -- to detect contraband hidden in body cavities.
"It’s a for-profit business," Reilly said of the prison’s black
market. A pack of cigarettes, for instance, can be sold for between $40 to $50, according to word of mouth. The going
rate for a cell phone is considerably higher. Cell phones are particularly
problematic in jails because they can be used to intimidate witnesses or
order drugs, among other criminal activities. Some prisoners, including
accused killer Lamar Haymes, have attempted to coordinate an escape using an
illegal phone. Prison officials have had trouble stemming the drug trade in
recent years, as evidenced by the case of Brian Sullivan, the 25-year-old
Marple resident who overdosed twice while in prison custody. The second one
killed him in April 2005. "They use these inmates that are given
preferential treatment to run the drugs for them inside the prison,"
said Richard Golomb, the Philadelphia attorney who sued GEO in October 2005
on behalf of the Sullivan family. The inmates that move the drugs for the
guards are known as "trustees," he said. GEO settled the Sullivan
suit about three months ago for a "substantial" amount, Golomb said
Monday. The settlement included a confidentiality clause, which he said
prevented him from disclosing the amount. GEO admitted no wrongdoing, as is
standard with such cases. "They have problems in that facility,"
Golomb said of the drug activity.

December
5, 2006 Philadelphia Enquirer
Higher costs at the state's only privately managed
prison are the major contributor to an $11.3 million, or 3.8 percent,
increase in Delaware County's proposed 2007 general budget. The George W.
Hill Correctional Facility is expected to cost $41.1 million to run in 2007,
up $4 million from this year's $37.1 million. Even so, the county would hold
the line on taxes by using a $8.8 million surplus
from the 2006 budget. Revenue this year will be $7.3 million higher than the
$293.4 million budgeted. The jump in prison expenses results from higher
management fees paid to the Geo Group Inc., the private manager, and an
increase in the number of local inmates incarcerated. That occurred after the
prison returned 350 inmates to Philadelphia this year to relieve
overcrowding, thereby giving up rental income that had offset the prison's
costs since it opened in 1998. The prison has a capacity of 1,851 inmates, according
to the Geo Group. "Corrections is the budget
item that is straining every budget," said Marianne Grace, the county's
executive director.

June
29, 2006 Philadelphia InquirerGuards at the Delaware County jail have extended their labor contract
from June 30 to July 17 as their employer, Geo Group Inc., studies their
latest demands. The county's George W. Hill Correctional Facility is the only
privately operated prison in Pennsylvania. Members of the Delaware County
Prison Employees Independent Union have rejected two earlier company offers
by lopsided margins. In the latest vote, on June 20, the margin was 101
members against ratification to 58 for it. "We expect a positive
response from the company," union president Mike Pelleriti said. A Geo
spokesman declined to comment.

June
21, 2006 Delco TimesDelaware County prison guards voted down a second contract proposal on
Monday and authorized a strike by a nearly 2-1 margin. The new contract
garnered more support than one that was rejected last month, 183-11, but
union members remain dissatisfied with wages, overtime restrictions and
perhaps other issues, said Michael Pelleriti, president of the Delaware
County Prison Employees Independent Union. "There are some people that
feel the wages are not sufficient at this point," Pelleriti said. The
union, which represents about 300 guards at the George W. Hill Correctional
Facility in Concord, voted against the contract 101-58, despite the fact that
GEO Group Inc. had dropped vacation restrictions and reinstated "shift
splitting," in which guards divvy up their mandated overtime. Pelleriti
said wages also had been improved over the first proposal, but declined to
specify by how much. The current starting hourly wage is $11.24, with an
increase to $13.40 after 90 days. "Right now, the wages are still a
little low," compared to what other corrections officers are making
nationally and across the tri-state area, Pelleriti said. "Some of the
members see that and they want to catch up to everyone else." In
addition to increased wages, the guards want time-and-a-half for working more
than eight hours, instead of only receiving overtime pay when they work a
double shift or more than 40 hours a week. Pelleriti said there could be
other areas of discontent that have not yet been relayed to the union
leadership. "We still have our feelers out and are trying to pinpoint
exactly where the problems are," he said. A vote against the contract
was a vote to authorize a strike -- something the union could not legally do
prior to 1996 when the county ran the prison and the guards were government
employees. As GEO employees, the guards have the right to walk out. Last
month, GEO secured a new $58 million county contract to operate the prison
through 2007. The contract will boost GEO’s revenue by at least 10 percent in
the first year. Some union members feel their pay should increase
accordingly, according to one guard who voted against the contract.
"They got $58 million," said the guard, who declined to be
identified. "The personnel that are part of the union want some of that
money." While a strike has been authorized, Pelleriti said the union
intended to continue talking with the Florida-based company and considers a
strike to be the "last resort." "We’re more than willing to go
back to the table and try to iron out the differences," he said. A GEO
spokesman did not respond Monday to a request for comment and has previously
said the company would have no public comment until an agreement is reached.
The guards are currently working under an extension to the labor contract
that was ratified in 2003 after three votes by the union membership. The new
three-year contract would be retroactive to June 1 and run through May 2009.
The county Board of Prison Inspectors, which contracts with GEO and monitors
its performance at the prison, has remained neutral during the labor
negotiations. If a strike were to occur, however, the prison board
"certainly would support GEO," said board Solicitor Robert DiOrio.
"Because they’re employees of a private company, they would have the
right to strike, but then there are public safety issues that would have to
be addressed," DiOrio said. "The personal rights of the employees
would not be able to trump the public safety, in my opinion."

May
31, 2006 Delco TimesWith a staggering vote of 183-11, prison guards at the George W. Hill
Correctional Facility overwhelmingly rejected a labor contract proposed by
GEO Group Inc. Michael Pelleriti, president of the Delaware County Prison
Employees Independent Union, said he wants to return to the bargaining table
to renegotiate wages, vacation restrictions, sick time and other provisions
in the contract. While the union, which represents nearly 300 guards at the
county prison, has not authorized a strike, Pelleriti said he would not rule
it out if GEO refuses to budge. "A strike down the road - if talks break
down - is always an option," Pelleriti said late Tuesday afternoon after
the votes had been tallied. No date has been set for further negotiations.
The vote came after GEO granted concessions on a health-care provision that
union officials say would have increased premiums for all guards. Under the
revised proposal, the current health-care plan remains in place - single
guards receive full coverage and married guards pay $200 a month for their
spouses and children. The contract would run from June 1, 2006 to Dec. 31,
2010 and raise wages between 3.5 percent to 8 percent in the first year, 4
percent in the second and third year and 2 percent in the last seven months.
Pelleriti said many guards were satisfied with the proposed health-care
coverage, but the union may push for increased wages or work rule changes in
response to the "excessive mandated overtime" at the prison. Some
guards, he said, are required to work 16-hour shifts every other day.
"If we're going to continue that, they need to be compensated," he
said. A GEO spokesman could not be reached Tuesday and Warden Ronald
Nardolillo declined to comment. Robert DiOrio, solicitor for the county Board
of Prison Inspectors, said the board does not interfere in labor
negotiations. In 1996, the county outsourced the management of the prison to
GEO, formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp. "We have never gotten involved
in any employment affairs of Wackenhut or GEO," DiOrio said. "It's
just none of our business." Last week, GEO secured a $58 million
contract to run the prison through 2007. The 19-month contract will boost the
company's revenue there by at least 10 percent in the first year and another
4 percent in the last seven months of the contract, plus additional
compensation when the prison population exceeds 1,883 inmates. GEO will not
reveal its profit margin at the publicly funded prison. Based in Boca Raton,
Fla., the company operates 61 facilities in four countries that generate more
than $600 million in annual revenue.

May
27, 2006 Philadelphia InquirerGEO Group Inc. will continue to manage Delaware County's George W. Hill
Correctional Facility through 2007, despite a rash of incidents there,
including inmate deaths. The Board of Prison Inspectors this week voted to
renew the firm's contract, raising its monthly fee by 10 percent to $3
million when the new 19-month pact begins June 1. The county has increased
its 2006 jail budget by 30 percent to cover higher costs, due to the new
contract and a growing number of local prisoners. "We have never wanted
for customers," said Robert D'Orio, the board's solicitor. The board has
been "generally pleased" with GEO, which has managed the jail in
Thornton since its opening in 1996. "The other providers out there also
have problems," he said. "It is not an easy operation when you run
a jail." A spokesman for GEO, formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp.,
didn't return phone calls. The Delaware county facility is the only privately
run adult jail in Pennsylvania. House Speaker John M. Perzel (R., Phila.) is
on the GEO board of directors. But D'Orio said, "I'd bet that most or
all of the board had no idea" of Perzel's ties before recent news
articles. GEO recently paid a $100,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging that the
jail failed to diagnose or treat a grave illness that caused inmate Rosalyn
Atkinson's death in 2002. Six inmates have died of unnatural causes since
2001. C. Scott Shields, a lawyer in Media who has represented inmates and their
families, said GEO has "serious personnel issues" at the jail.
Shields won a undisclosed settlement for James
Johnson, who was held 44 days at the jail by mistake by GEO employees
"who were completely indifferent" to his plight, Shields said.

May
15, 2006 News of Delaware CountyPrison board officials hope to make a decision by the May 17 meeting on
who will run the Delaware County Prison. "We'll continue to talk to
bidders of the next few days," said board president Wallace Nunn.
"Hopefully we'll be able to make a decision." The prison has been
under contract with GEO Group Inc. since August 1995. In June 2003, they
renewed the contract for a three-year base with subsequent terms of three
years until 2009. The contract allows the county to receive bids from other
companies every three years. With the deadline on May 31, Nunn insisted the
board hoped to reach a decision by the May 17 board meeting. The board, "would have to get an extension at the
point," Nunn said if they did not have a decision by the May meeting. He
added that the board would like to avoid that process. The prison board
originally formed a four-member committee to review the proposals. The
members were prison board solicitor Robert DiOrio, board member George Hill,
prison CPA Chris Reynolds and Richard Culp, the assistant professor at the
department of public management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. On
April 19 they announced three additional members; Blank Rome attorney
Lawrence Beaser, the county finance department's James Hayes and Delaware
County Councilman Jack Whelan. "The county said, we'd like to be at the
table," Nunn said of the county members being added. The committee has
narrowed GEO's competition for running the prison to one other company,
Management and Training Corporation (MTC). GEO has run the Delaware County
Prison since it became the first privatize facility in 1993. The prison
accounts for the largest cost for the taxpayers in the county with $37
million budgeted for 2006. With facilities all over the world, GEO has 44
correction and detention centers in the United States. A worldwide
organization, GEO has accumulated almost $613 million in revenue for 2006
including over $72 million in profits, according to the New York Stock
Exchange. The MTC's philosophy to prisons is "rehabilitation through
education," according to communication director Carl Stuart. "We
believe inmates can only succeed when given the opportunity to better
themselves while imprisoned," Stuart wrote in an email. Created in 1981,
MTC operates 12 correctional facilities in the United States and 25 federal
Job Corps centers, according to Stuart. The company earned about $468 million
in revenue for 2005. Nunn removed himself from the selection process last
month because of his employment with CitiGroup. "One of those
(CitiGroup) divisions or another may or may not have at some point in time
dealt with one or more of the people that are making the proposals,"
Nunn said. "I don't know that we've done any business," Nunn said. "But
just to be sure since we're so large."

March
14, 2006 Philadelphia InquirerDisoriented and scared, Rosalyn Atkinson awoke crying and asked the nurse
at her bedside a prophetic question: "Am I going to die?" It was
Oct. 18, 2002, and Atkinson was on the 11th day of an 18-day odyssey that
would take her from the Delaware County jail to a local hospital, back to
jail, and then, as she feared, to her death. Officially, Atkinson, 25, died
because of a fatal overdose of a single high-blood-pressure drug administered
by jail infirmary staff, the Delaware County medical examiner determined.
Jail operators admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to a $100,000 settlement.
For Atkinson's two children, it means each will receive $31,782.42 after
legal fees and medical costs, according to a court document filed early this
month. The story of the final weeks of Atkinson's life, however, encompasses
far more than a single error in a prison infirmary. A review of court filings
and medical and hospital records provided by Atkinson's family revealed:
Prison staff did not consistently provide prescribed medication, failed to
monitor her vital signs, and misinterpreted Atkinson's psychotic behavior as
a sign of drug abuse. Atkinson was jailed on a probation violation three days
after she was diagnosed with a severe form of lupus, a potentially fatal
autoimmune disorder that can cause psychotic behavior. She was locked up
because of a shoving match with another woman at Crozer-Chester Medical
Center in which no one was injured. Probation officers ignored numerous pleas
from her mother to give Atkinson house arrest instead of incarceration. When
Atkinson fell seriously ill, the jail transferred her to Riddle Memorial
Hospital, which later sent her back to prison even though, medical records
show, she was still suffering from delusions. Atkinson died about 40 hours
later. Six inmates have died from unnatural causes since 2001 at Delaware
County's George W. Hill Correctional Center in Thornton. Operated by the GEO
Group, it is the only privately run adult jail in the state. In addition to
Atkinson's death, two prisoners committed suicide, another was killed by a
fellow inmate, and the fourth died of an overdose of heroin smuggled into the
jail. A fifth died in 2005 of head and neck injuries after repeatedly throwing
himself against his cell door, county officials said.

February
3, 2006 Philadelphia Inquirer
A Colwyn man who was imprisoned for 44 days last year after Delaware County
jail officials refused to check his repeated, and true, claim that they had
the wrong person has netted a cash settlement, court records show. James J.
Johnson, 28, filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that correctional
officers missed opportunities to verify his identity and threatened to charge
him with additional crimes if he did not stop claiming that he was not Shawn
Carter, the name on the arrest warrant used to jail him. Shawn Carter is also
the real name of rap artist Jay-Z and a common alias in prison, a search of
prison aliases on the state Department of Corrections Web site shows. The
county jail is run by the GEO Group, formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections
Corp., of Boca Raton, Fla., and is the only privately run prison in the
state. The company, not the county, is responsible for all settlements and
court awards. The amount of the settlement was not disclosed. Throughout the
intake process, jailers at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility missed
numerous opportunities to correctly identify him, the suit alleged. The
Carter named in the arrest warrant had a dragon tattoo. Johnson did not.
Authorities never compared the two men's fingerprints, the suit said. Also,
the prison failed to compare his physical characteristics to those of the
Carter named in the warrant and ignored the results of an iris scan that
confirmed he was the wrong man, the suit stated.

December
6, 2005 Delco Times
While several Delaware County municipalities are planning to levy a new $52
tax on their workers and increase property taxes for their residents, county
government is eyeing the same slice of your pie. The $293.7 million 2006
budget proposal county council will present this morning holds property taxes
at 4.45 mills for the second year in a row. That translates into $572 for the
average assessed property of $128,500. The county prison, meanwhile, is
expected to absorb an additional $8.7 million in tax dollars. Operated
through a contract with GEO Group Inc., total 2006 spending at the George W.
Hill Correctional Facility is estimated at $37.4 million, an increase of 30
percent over this year's budget. Spending there increased about 19 percent
between 2004 and 2005. The county Board of Prison Inspectors voted in October
to terminate a lucrative Philadelphia inmate housing contract. Overcrowding
has become so severe at the prison that the board was forced to begin sending
350 inmates back to the city and give up between $1 million to $1.5 million
in annual profits.

December
2, 2005 Delco Times
The former Delaware County prison supervisor charged with sexually assaulting
a female inmate waived his preliminary hearing Thursday. Joseph Franklin
Henderson, an employee of GEO Group Inc., is charged with two counts each of
institutional sexual assault, bribery and official oppression. He was in
Concordville District Court, accompanied by his attorney Robert Dixon.
Henderson was brought to court from Chester County prison, where he is being
held. Henderson is accused of sexually assaulting the female inmate twice.
Both times, Henderson allegedly picked up the woman from her work-release job
and instead of dropping her off at the prison, drove her to secluded areas,
where sexual activity occurred. The alleged victim told investigators that on
three occasions, Henderson picked her up from her job, drove to a secluded
spot, then threatened to interfere with her upcoming parole hearing if she
didn't perform oral sex, according to the affidavit of probable cause. She
also claimed Henderson used personal information about her ailing relative,
saying she wouldn't be able to visit with the relative if Henderson went to
the parole board about her, the affidavit states.

November
17, 2005 Philadelphia Inquirer
Delaware County's beleaguered jail wants to add 350 beds, even as it begins
returning that number of inmates to Philadelphia. The George W. Hill Correctional
Facility, the only privately run prison in the state, will end its practice
of leasing beds to Philadelphia by late May, said prison board chairman
Charles P. Sexton. The county is getting rid of the city prisoners because
its jail is overcrowded, and expectations are that the local inmate
population will keep growing. The decision to expand comes as the Delaware
County jail has been faced with a spate of deaths and lawsuits in recent
months, including a heroin overdose. A correctional officer was charged with
raping a female inmate last week. Officials also recently announced that they
would be seeking bids on the contract held by GEO. Sexton said that
announcement was not connected to the recent deaths and that GEO would be
considered if it bid. He also said the state would inspect the prison in
2006. The jail had been the only one in the state to take advantage of a
loophole that allowed it to opt out of annual state inspections. Instead, it
has been inspected every three years by a national corrections association.
District Attorney G. Michael Green has been investigating how drugs that
killed inmate Brian Sullivan on April 15 got into the prison. He died of a
heroin overdose. Sullivan's father, who claims he'd warned jail officials
that his son was an addict and needed help, has filed suit against the prison
seeking $500,000. The GEO Group, not the county, would be fiscally
responsible for any award or settlement. As part of that investigation, a
visitor was arrested last week after attempting to smuggle drugs into the
jail in her vagina, a jail official said. Also last week, a guard was charged
with sexually assaulting a female inmate on two separate occasions, most
recently on Nov. 7.

November
10, 2005 Delco Times
The supervisor of the work-release program at George Hill Correctional
Facility was on his way to county lockup late Wednesday, charged with
sexually assaulting a female inmate twice in a prison van. Dropping his head
into his hands, Joseph Franklin Henderson, 47, of the 2100 block of McKinley
Street in Philadelphia, made a plea for unsecured bail -- but Magisterial
District Judge Richard Cappelli was adamantly opposed. Henderson, an employee
of GEO Group Inc., is charged with two counts each of institutional sexual
assault, bribery and official oppression. A preliminary hearing is scheduled
for Nov. 17. He's accused of sexually assaulting a female inmate twice, first
back in late September or early October, and again on Monday. Both times,
Henderson picked the woman up from her work-release job and instead of
dropping her off at the prison, drove her to secluded areas. Allegations
involve both oral and vaginal sex. Back at county detective headquarters,
Henderson admitted he had oral sex with the woman two times, according to the
affidavit. He said he was neither threatening nor forceful, and that the
woman had been coming on to him.

November
2, 2005 Delco Times
Lying on his stomach and propped up by his elbows, a middle-aged man stares
through a window with a slightly curious, but otherwise blank, expression.
The window doesn't lead outside, but to a secluded hallway where a prison
guard is staring back. It is the guard's sole responsibility to prevent that
inmate from becoming another Michael Rafferty, the accused triple-murderer
who died in August after slamming himself into a prison wall. The guard, an
employee of the private corrections firm GEO Group Inc., has been assigned to
one-on-one suicide watch, the most intense form of observation practiced at
the George W. Hill Correctional Facility. While this particular inmate is
isolated in a small room, he is one of hundreds of mentally ill inmates
living at the overcrowded county prison on Cheyney Road. Like other prisons
around the country, it has become a repository for some of society's most
unstable citizens. "Prisons are housing more and more mentally ill
people because we have no other place to put them," said Jessica
Raymond, a member of the Pennsylvania Prison Society who monitors conditions
at the county prison. The society advocates for better living conditions for
inmates. Last year, the county prison expanded its medical unit to 53 beds,
more than twice the size of the previous unit. During a recent visit, it was
packed with inmates, some wearing "suicide gowns" that will rip if
used as a noose. Frank Green, an assistant superintendent employed by the
county to monitor GEO's management of the prison, said that volume is not
unusual. "It's double the workload," he said. "It makes
everything tougher." The increasing workload, combined with high
turnover and low wages, prompted 15 registered nurses, physician's assistants
and nurse practitioners to unionize in September, voting unanimously to join
the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals. In
March, about 80 other GEO employees - including all the licensed practical
nurses -- unionized through Teamsters Local 312. "If you have
substandard salary and benefits, you simply cannot recruit and retain the
kind of quality professionals you need to do the job," said April Smith,
director of organizing for PASNAP. Nurses at the prison, for example, receive
no paid vacation during their first year on the job, according to Smith.
Temple University Hospital, she said, gives new nurses three weeks paid
vacation. Delaware County's jail is the only privately run county prison in
the state. Reducing labor costs is one of the ways GEO and other private
corrections firms are able to run prisons more cheaply than the government
that hires them. With privatization comes a tradeoff in the level of
services, said Ken Kopczynski, executive director of the Private Corrections
Institute, a group that opposes privately run prisons. He said private
corrections companies are prone to "cut corners" - including in the
administration of medical services - in order to maintain their
profitability. "Why is it better for the county to do it? Public
officials are accountable to the public. The board of directors for GEO is
accountable to whom, the public? Hell, no. They're accountable to the shareholders,"
Kopczynski said. "And what are the shareholders interested in? The
profit. They have to turn a profit." "Guess what, that's bad
criminal justice policy," he said.

October
29, 2005 Delco Times
A Delaware County prison guard has been indicted on a federal conspiracy
charge for his role in three armed bank robberies in 2004. Henry Myers, an
employee of GEO Group Inc., is one of five defendants named in the indictment
filed by U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan on Oct. 20. Although Myers is not
charged with robbing the banks, he allegedly played a pivotal role in the
conspiracy. "He cased the banks," said Vickie Humphreys, an FBI
spokeswoman. Myers and four other men allegedly conspired with Burnie Tindale
-- who was charged earlier this year -- to rob the Artisans Bank in
Wilmington, Del., on April 14, the Citizens Bank in Brookhaven on June 15 and
the M & T Bank in Bristol, Bucks County, on Sept. 27. Myers allegedly
"cased" a PNC Bank on Bustleton Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia
and provided bank layout information for the robbery. That robbery, however,
was ultimately not committed, the indictment states. Myers was also advised
of the location of "switch" cars to be used in the Citizens Bank
robbery, in the event the cars had to be retrieved if the robberies were
unsuccessful, according to the indictment. Switch cars are usually parked
about a mile from the robberies and used by the robbers after they abandon
stolen get-away cars.

October
20, 2005 Delco Times
Concerned that overcrowding at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility could
expose Delaware County to future lawsuits, the
county is pulling out of a contract to house hundreds of Philadelphia
inmates. The Delaware County Board of Prison Inspectors voted Wednesday to
terminate the contract effective Jan. 15, more than four months before it was
scheduled to expire. The move will free up about 350 beds at the prison but
cost the county approximately $1 million a year in profits.

October
20, 2005 Philadelphia Enquirer
The parents of an inmate who died in jail of a heroin overdose are suing the
facility, claiming the drug was easily accessible to prisoners and, in some
cases, smuggled in by guards. Paul and Maureen Sullivan of the Philadelphia
suburb of Broomall filed a federal lawsuit last week seeking more than
$500,000 in damages. Their 26-year-old son, Brian Sullivan, died in Delaware
County's George W. Hill Correctional Facility on April 15 from a heroin
overdose, a medical examiner's report shows. He was in jail for failing to
attend a court-ordered drug treatment program after a DUI arrest. It was the
second time in six months that Sullivan had overdosed on heroin while in the
county prison, despite his parents' pleas with corrections officials to help
their son fight his addiction. The lawsuit accuses the county, Geo Group and
the prison board of allowing Sullivan "to remain in a general prison
population into which heroin was smuggled and easily accessible by
prisoners," even though he had a history of abusing drugs while in
custody. The lawsuit also alleges that some corrections officers were
smuggling drugs into the jail. The suit adds to a growing list of problems at
the state's only privately run county jail, which
announced Wednesday that it would ease overcrowding by returning about 350 Philadelphia
inmates to the city.

September
24, 2005 Delco Times
A convicted murderer who died last month while in custody at the George W.
Hill Correctional Facility gave no indications in the weeks leading up to his
death that he was planning to kill himself, according to a prison report
released Friday. Kevin Parks, who killed his wife with a claw hammer in June
2003, died Aug. 2 at Riddle Memorial Hospital after he was found unresponsive
in his cell. The original prison incident report implied that he might have
committed suicide by overdosing on prescription medication he could have been
hoarding. But a new report by The GEO Group, which manages the publicly
funded prison, suggests otherwise. The prison lieutenant who listened to
several of Parks’ telephone conversations beginning July 1 said the inmate
"sounded upbeat and gave no indications of his contemplating or planning
suicide ..the general topic of these conversations
consisted of baseball, food and letters he had received from various
individuals," the report states. At Wednesday’s prison board meeting,
Chairman Charles Sexton Jr. questioned John Hurley, GEO’s senior vice
president of North American Operations, about the possibility that Parks may
have intentionally overdosed. "How can they hoard medication? Because my
understanding is the way it’s supposed to be done is when medication is given
to an inmate, they are supposed to take the medication in front of the
individual that’s giving it" to ensure that it is swallowed, Sexton
said.

September
22, 2005 Delco Times
The multinational corrections corporation that manages the George W. Hill
Correctional Facility was informed Wednesday that it will be forced to
compete with other companies to maintain its $28 million-a-year county
contract that expires May 31. At its monthly meeting Wednesday, the
five-member Delaware County Board of Prison Inspectors took the first steps
toward opening the contract to companies other than The GEO Group Inc.,
voting unanimously to compile bidding specifications by Dec. 15. The board's
actions come amid a spate of high-profile deaths at the prison, including
those of accused triple murderer Michael Rafferty, 29, who died Aug. 18 after
jumping from his bed into a wall, and convicted wife-killer Kevin Parks, who
died Aug. 2. A prison incident report suggests that Parks may have committed
suicide by hoarding prescription medication. "Competition is
healthy," Sexton said, adding that he had personally decided six months
ago to put the contract out to bid and had since discussed it with other
board members who "had no problem with it." Nonetheless, two other
recent deaths and a near suicide are not helping GEO's image. Clyde Tyler,
49, a convicted rapist, died March 27 during a fistfight with another inmate.
Brian Sullivan, 25, of Broomall, Marple Township died April 15 of an
overdose.

September
19, 2005 Philadelphia Inquirer
James Johnson can trace his troubles back to rapper Jay-Z's Hard Knock Life.
He spent more than a month and a half in jail in Delaware County charged with
a crime he didn't commit, accused of being a man he wasn't. And prison
officials had to ignore a lot of facts to keep him there. Five years later,
Johnson, now head custodian at the World Cafe Live on Walnut Street in West
Philadelphia, learned that the past has a way of catching up with a man.
Johnson spent 44 days in the George W. Hill Correctional Facility beginning
April 6 for crimes committed by a man known as Shawn Carter. During that
time, he told guards, a counselor, a public defender and prosecutors that he
was the wrong man. Nobody listened. Any of these known facts could have
sprung Johnson: He was in jail at the time of Carter's arrest. Johnson's
sister and sister-in-law are Hill Correctional Facility employees. Officials
ignored their pleas that Johnson was not Carter. Carter had a dragon tattoo,
which was described in the arrest warrant. Johnson did not. Authorities never
compared the two men's fingerprints. Officials had photographs of both men.
Carter is 3 inches taller than Johnson. His case adds to pressure against the
appointed county prison board and the GEO Group, the private firm that runs
the jail. A series of recent prison deaths - five in five months - has
brought the scrutiny of the county's top prosecutor and prompted an internal
investigation by the company. And earlier this year, GEO agreed to pay
$125,000 to the family of an inmate who hanged himself by his boot strings in
2002. Now, Johnson is suing the county, the correctional facility, and GEO,
accusing them of violating his civil rights. Because of the lawsuit, county
and company officials refused to comment on the Johnson case. While Johnson
was complaining on the inside that he was wrongly jailed, his fiancée,
Shilonda Hargrove, was banging on doors on the outside. "My fiancée kept
calling and calling and saying, 'All you have to do is look at the
fingerprints,' " Johnson said last week. He said GEO also refused to
hear the pleas of his sister and sister-in-law, both correctional officers at
the jail. At the prison, Delaware County District Attorney G. Michael Green's
office has been investigating four deaths - a heroin overdose, two apparent
suicides, and an unexplained fatality. The fifth death stemmed from a fight,
and the killing was ruled self-defense.

September
6, 2005 Philadelphia InquirerDelaware County's privately run prison has come under the scrutiny of
county investigators, and the company that runs the facility was scrambling
to examine its policies and identify any missteps after five questionable
inmate deaths in the last five months, officials said. Four deaths - a heroin
overdose, two apparent suicides and an unexplained fatality - are under
review by Delaware County District Attorney G. Michael Green. The fifth
death, from a fistfight, was investigated earlier this year, but no charges
were filed. William M. DiMascio, executive director of the Prison Society in
Philadelphia, said five questionable deaths in as many months seemed
unusually high. The George W. Hill Correctional Facility is privately run by
GEO Group, formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp., but controlled by an
appointed board. Prison and county officials have refused to release incident
reports for the deaths. Charles P. Sexton, chairman of the county Board of
Prison Inspectors, was unavailable for comment, said the board's attorney,
Robert M. Diorio. The prison has room for 1,800 prisoners sleeping two to a
cell. Now, the prison averages 2,000 inmates a day and is in some cases
sleeping three to a cell. GEO agreed to pay $125,000 in a settlement earlier
this year to the family of an inmate, John Focht, 43, who used his boot
strings to hang himself in February 2002, court documents show. "It
seems awfully suspicious when somebody is willing to pay out $125,000 in a
case where somebody killed themselves," said the Prison Society's
DiMascio. "It just seems pretty obvious that something has gone
awry."

August
25, 2005 Delco Times
What is going on at Delaware County’s prison? Answers were few this week,
even as bodies continue to pile up at the county-owned facility in Concord
Township known as the George W. Hill Correctional Facility. Two high-profile
inmates have died there in the last month, both apparent suicides. Last
Thursday, it was Michael Rafferty, the 29-year-old Drexel Hill man who was
awaiting a court date for stabbing to death his parents and a neighbor and
seriously wounding the neighbor’s wife. On Aug. 2, it was Kevin Parks, the
42-year-old Bethel Township man beginning a life sentence for beating his
wife, Teresa, to death with a hammer. Both men had histories of mental
illness. Parks may have overdosed on medication he stashed away in his cell,
according to preliminary reports. Rafferty died from injuries he sustained
when he leaped from a table and slammed into a prison cell wall. On top of those
deaths, a prisoner named Vincent Burton was found dead in his cell on Sunday
morning; his cause of death remains undetermined. Last month, an unidentified
inmate nearly killed himself by hanging from his bunk; fortunately, he was
found in time to be revived. And last March, a convicted serial rapist named
Clyde Taylor died after a fistfight with another inmate. Some might argue
that these prisoners only got what was coming to them. But that would be
wrong; whatever their crimes, or alleged crimes, none of these men was
sentenced to death. They were, however, in the care and custody of Delaware
County and its agents. But trying to get any answers from county officials
this week was almost impossible. Prison Superintendent George W. Hill, for
whom the jail is named, was unavailable, as was prison board Chairman Charles
Sexton. Members of county council and other prison board members had little
to say. The GEO Group, contracted by the county to run the 1,800-inmate
lockup, declined comment on any of the prison’s policies. Only prison board
lawyer Robert DiOrio had anything substantive to say, and that wasn’t much.
"The prison board has nothing to determine at this time as to whether or
not any of these deaths was preventable," he said. "Sometimes
procedures are followed that are good procedures and valid and recognized
procedures throughout the industry and nevertheless people still find a way
to take their lives, unfortunately, without anyone being culpable except themselves." Here’s a translation: The board members
appointed by the county to oversee the operations of the prison don’t have
any idea what’s going on out there, or whether standard rules and regulations
are in place. That’s simply not good enough -- particularly in the cases of
Rafferty and Parks, who were more vulnerable than other inmates because of
their mental illnesses. Why was Parks moved out of the prison’s medical unit,
even after his sentencing judge ordered that he be carefully monitored? How
does a prisoner "hoard" medication in his cell? What kind of
medications were being given to Rafferty and was anyone watching him a day
after he had to be restrained while suffering demonic delusions? Without any better explanations from county officials, it
seems that oversight is, minimally, lacking at the George W. Hill
Correctional Facility. Taxpayers need to know that those being remanded to
county custody are being monitored and accounted for. There’s no reason for
Delaware County’s prison to become a branch office of Delaware County’s
morgue.

August
23, 2005 Delco Times
An inmate at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility died this weekend of
undetermined causes, following the deaths of two high-profile prisoners this
month, a suicide resuscitation last month and the March beating death of a
convicted serial rapist during a fistfight with another inmate. The Delaware
County District Attorney’s office is reviewing the death of Vincent Burton,
42, who was found dead in his bunk Sunday morning, according to a prison
report released Monday. Burton’s cause of death is pending an autopsy by the
county medical examiner, but the prison report stated that no signs of foul
play were observed. Also under investigation is the death of Michael
Rafferty, the Upper Darby man accused of stabbing his parents and neighbor to
death during a July 23 rampage. Rafferty, who according to a family attorney
had been diagnosed as having depression with psychosis, died last Thursday
after jumping from his bed into a wall. Another inmate, convicted wife killer
Kevin Parks, died Aug. 2 at Riddle Memorial Hospital of undisclosed causes.
Though the medical examiner has not ruled in that case, either, a prison
report suggests that Parks may have overdosed by hoarding prescription
anti-depressant medication. Parks’ defense attorney, Stephen Patrizio, said
Monday that Parks was "absolutely" a known suicide threat.
Convicted of killing his wife Teresa Parks with a hammer, Parks said in
court: "I look forward to the time when we will be united in
heaven." "Judge (Frank) Hazel specifically ordered that he be
monitored very closely and carefully," said Patrizio. "My
understanding is he was in the medical unit, but due to either overcrowding
or some determination made by a doctor there, he was removed from the medical
unit," Patrizio added. That statement could not be verified Monday by
anyone affiliated with the prison.

July
24, 2005 Delco TimesSeventeen health-care professionals at the Delaware County prison have
signed cards indicating they want to unionize, a union official said Saturday.
April Smith, director of organizing for the Pennsylvania Association of Staff
Nurses and Allied Professionals, said all but one of the nurses, nurse
practitioners and physician assistants at the facility signed union cards
over the last two weeks. "We’re delighted that the professionals
at the George W. Hill correctional facility have decided to join
PASNAP," Bill Cruice, the union’s executive director, said. The
Thornbury prison is managed through the GEO Group Inc., formerly Wackenhut
Corrections Corp., through a publicly funded contract. Its daily average
population last year was 1,785 residents. Representatives from the GEO
Group Inc. were also unable to be reached Saturday.
In March, non-security employees voted to join Teamsters Local 312 by a more
than 2-1 margin. That union covers about 80 employees such as counselors,
supervisors, clerical workers and some medical personnel. The prison
guards, who number about 280, have been represented by the Delaware County
Prison Employees Independent Union since 1999.

April 16, 2005 Delco Times
A prosecutor said Friday that Sandra Denise Belt has pointed an accusatory
finger at everybody but herself in the theft of more than $26,000 while
working as a clerk for the Wackenhut Corp., which ran Delaware County’s
prison. Belt, 36, of Colmesneil, Texas, who worked in a prison, will now be
part of the inmate population as she was sentenced Friday to 11½ to 23 months
in jail. Assistant District Attorney Gregory Hurchalla said that Belt, whose
husband worked as an assistant warden, has refused to accept any
responsibility "despite overwhelming evidence." A jury convicted
her of theft charges following a trial last month. "She was living a
comfortable lifestyle," said Hurchalla. "There’s no reasonable
explanation as to why she stole the money. She’s willing to point the finger
at everybody but herself."

March
31, 2005 Delco Times
Sandra Denise Belt testified that when she was hired as a clerk handling
inmates’ money for the Wackenhut Corp. that ran Delaware County’s prison, she
told officials that she wasn’t good with numbers. "I told them when I
took this job I transposed numbers real bad," she said. Belt, 36, of
Colmesneil, Texas, whose honey-colored hair cascaded to her waist as she
spoke with a sugary Southern accent, was found guilty Tuesday of charges she
pocketed more than $26,000 while working at the Thornbury-based facility.
Following the verdict, as tears rolled down her face, Belt was handcuffed and
taken off to prison to await sentencing, which Judge George Koudelis
tentatively set for Tuesday. The judge raised her bail from 10 percent of
$10,000 to $10,000 cash bail.

December
30, 2004 Newsof DelawareCounty.comWith the prisoner population at Delaware County's George W. Hill
Correctional Facility on the rise, some inmates are complaining about
conditions, including claims of overcrowding, problems accessing attorneys
and counselors, and a lack of maintenance or cleanliness. "Intake
there's three to a cell," said George W. Hill inmate Wanell Davis. "They
got you in like a dog bed. You sleep on a floor." Davis, of Wilmington, Delaware, had served one year in
the facility awaiting sentencing at the time of the interview. He said
overcrowding has caused overfilling of cells, mostly in receiving areas, but
also in other parts of the prison. Board solicitor Robert DiOrio, however,
confirmed that the facility's population has risen by "several
hundred" in recent years, but said cell capacity is only exceeded in
receiving areas, and only for very brief periods when it is unavoidable. Currently, DiOrio
said, the population is not exceeding capacity. Davis, however, disagrees.
"They're supposed to give out this thing, it's called care bags,"
he said. "We're short on something they're supposed to give us-soap,
toilet paper ... We just got the water fixed. The water was broke for six
months. There's guys that haven't cleaned their
cells for six months." "The people that come in and out, they don't
clean the blankets," Mark said. "They give you no cleaning
materials." DiOrio confirmed that
occasionally water service is interrupted. Other prisoners say they have
trouble speaking with counselors or lawyers. Defense attorney Mike Malloy, who
practices in Media, said he has experienced long waits when going to visit
with clients at the prison. "They seem to be understaffed and they also
have a high (employee) turnover rate," Malloy said. Prisoners also spoke
of guards selling cigarettes for as much as $5 a piece in the smoke-free
facility. DiOrio said this was against the rules, but said it was an
employment issue for GEO, the private company that manages the jail. The
county plans to increase its funding for the prison for 2005, with most of
the new money going toward that contract, Delaware County budget director Dan
Fahey said. The cost of the contract is
increasing about $1.29 million, bringing it to $31.97 million for 2005.

December
11, 2004 Delco TimesCriminal justice expenditures are
set to increase by 10.5 percent in 2005 because of $4.6 million in new
spending at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility, which is managed by The
GEO Group Inc., formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp. The 4.45 property-tax
millage requirement will remain the same in 2005 if the proposed budget is
adopted at Tuesday’s council meeting, as expected. The $28.7 million in
anticipated spending at the county prison -- an increase of 18.9 percent over
2004 -- is due to an all-time-high prison population that has recently peaked
at 1,870 inmates, according to prison board Chairman Charles P. Sexton Jr.

November
19, 2004 Delco TimesDelaware County’s 2005 budget
proposal shows a spending increase of $12.4 million but holds the property
tax millage at the 2004 rate. Criminal justice expenditures would increase 10.5
percent, fueled by $4.6 million in new spending at the George W. Hill
Correctional Facility. Total county spending at the prison, which is managed
by The GEO Group Inc., formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp., is expected to
reach $28.7 million in 2005 -- a 19 percent increase over 2004.

June
13, 2004
The GEO Group, formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp., fired the warden of the
George W. Hill correctional facility Thursday. According to Delaware County
Prison Board Chairman Charles P. Sexton, Jr. and several other high-ranking
county sources, Warden John "Doug" Caulfield was let go for both
budgetary and personal reasons. "I'll confirm that Caulfield's
out," Sexton said. "But I won't comment any further because it's
not a county personnel matter." Sources said the budgetary issues
stemmed from a failure on Caulfield's part to meet staffing levels agreed
upon in the county's contract with the corrections conglomerate. A
clause, fought for by county negotiators, was put in place to penalize GEO
for a failure to meet or maintain staffing standards on a monthly
basis. (Delco Times)

February 9, 2004A Delaware County prison guard was fired Tuesday
after an internal investigation found that he had assaulted an inmate, the
prison warden said. Lt. Victor Lay was given a letter of termination from the
GEO Group Inc. - formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp. - after he physically
assaulted an inmate last month, said Warden Douglas Caulfield."He used excessive force to control an inmate who
was being uncooperative with (returning to his cell)," said
Caulfield. "There are acceptable ways of handling such an
insurgent. We do have a force continuum in place that calls for light force
to be taken. But for some reason, Lay just snapped on the guy and started
beating him to a pulp," he said. The identity of the inmate was
not available. Caulfield said Lay was immediately suspended from his
job pending an internal investigation. GEO corporate offices gave Caulfield
the green light earlier this week. "We have a zero tolerance
policy for this type of behavior," Caulfield said. Caulfield, who
could not confirm Lay’s residence or salary, said questions had been raised
about Lay’s performance before. "I know he’s had a history of
questionable behavior," Caulfield said. "We’ve just never able to
nail him down until now. We finally had other officers come forward and tell
us about this." Delaware County Assistant District Attorney Joseph
Brielmann said the case has not been referred to his office for review,
although Caulfield said he expected that such a referral was
"imminent." Since Delaware County privatized its jail
operations in 1996, a series of alleged misconduct and outright crimes by
correctional officers, on and off the job, have been reported. Among
them:- On Aug. 11, 2001, an altercation between since convicted murderer
Kareem Bahiy and Wackenhut correctional officer Thernell Hardy Jr. resulted
in criminal charges against Hardy. Bahiy, 24, of Philadelphia, is
serving a life sentence after killing Springfield CVS manager John DiOstilio
in June, 2001. Former district attorney Patrick Meehan said Hardy, 35,
of Chester, stabbed Kareem Bahiy, 24, of Philadelphia in the neck after a
conversation Meehan termed "aggressive." Hardy was charged
with aggravated and simple assault and related offenses and was subsequently
fired by Wackenhut. Hardy, who had worked at the jail since 1999,
denied stabbing Bahiy with a knife, claiming the prisoner’s injury was caused
by Hardy’s thumbnail. - On April 18, 2001, off-duty Wackenhut
correctional officer Jermaine Richardson of Philadelphia was arrested for
shooting a man in the city that night. Richardson was charged with
attempted murder and related offenses for allegedly firing at Bruce Cox in
the 1000 block of 64th Street. Cox was treated at the Hospital of the
University of Pennsylvania for gunshot wounds to his legs, police said. The
case was dismissed in Philadelphia because an eyewitness refused to testify
and Richardson was allowed to return to work at the prison after a suspension.
- In June 1999, Wackenhut hired as a correctional officer Michael D. Kemp
Carter of Chester. Carter had entered the county’s Accelerated Rehabilitative
Disposition program for first-time offenders earlier that year after
admitting to stealing computers from the Chadds Ford office of accounting
firm Deloitte & Touche, where he had worked as a security guard.
Carter was fired by Wackenhut in December 1999 and later accused of leading a
forgery ring. He told prosecutors that he supplied three co-defendants with
numerous fraudulent checks, including some stolen from Wackenhut and drawn on
a company account. In 2001, he pleaded guilty to a pair of felony theft
charges related to $12,200 in bad checks. - In March 1998, Wackenhut
suspended Assistant Warden Richard Robinson indefinitely after he was accused
of improper contact with a female inmate. A criminal probe into the matter by
Delaware County detectives found no criminal wrongdoing. Robinson no longer
works at the jail. - In two separate incidents in February 1997,
officials reported the company fired five male correctional officers accused
of sexually harassing female colleagues. (Zwire)

December 16, 2002
Unless contraband cigarettes stop flowing through George W. Hill Correctional
Facility in Philadelphia, the warden could be sent to jail, a Deleware County
official said in October. Charles Sexton, chairman of the Deleware
County Board of Prison Inspectors, which oversees the Wackenhut-operated
facility, told Warden John Caulfield he had to eliminate the black market in
cigarettes and narcotics, allegedly aided by correctional officers, or defend
himself against charges that could send him to jail. A June search of
one prison building turned up 117 packs of cigarettes and unauthorized money.
Sexton told Caulfield he would try to have the new warden arrested if the
cigarette and alcohol contraband problem continued to go unchecked.
(Corrections Professional)

November
26, 2002A Delaware County corrections officer
with a criminal history is jailed in the prison she guarded on charges that
she delivered a death threat to a witness in a police officer's murder.Police say Angeline McKellar, while working
Wednesday at the Delaware County prison, told a female inmate who is a
state's witness in the October 2001 shooting death of Chester Police Cpl.
Michael Beverly that she would be killed, according to the affidavit of
probable cause.A review of Delaware
County court files shows that McKellar established a

criminal
history while working as a guard at the prison.She was sentenced to one year's probation
in March 1999 for simple assault, stemming from a 1998 Chester bar fight. In
September 1999, McKellar was sentenced to one year's probation after pleading
guilty to welfare fraud. In August 2001, she was sentenced to time served in
an in-patient program and community service for driving under the influence
the year before.A document dated May
25, 2000, says that McKellar was employed as a guard at the prison, but it is
unclear how long she had worked there. She has been suspended without pay,
Robert DiOrio, solicitor for the county Prison Board, said yesterday.Though the Prison Board is charged with
running the county prison, Diorio said hiring and oversight of guards are
handled by the for-profit Wackenhut Corrections Corp., a Florida company that
has a contract with Delaware County to operate the prison.
(Philadelphia Inquirer)

November
5, 2002
Delaware County executive director Marianne Grace has submitted a $245.8
million proposed county budget for 2003 that calls for a 7.9 percent tax
increase. A substantial increase is proposed in the cost of running the
county prison, which is operated by the for-profit Wackenhut Corrections
Corp. in 2001, Wackenhut said it was losing money on the prison and began
taking steps to end its contract with the county. The county
subsequently renegotiated the contract and gave the company more money.
Wackenhut then decided to stay. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

July
18, 2002
The new warden at Delaware county's prison was put on notice yesterday that
if he does not stop the flow of contraband cigarettes into the facility in
the next month, he could end up in a cell of his own. Charles P.
Sexton, the chairman of the Delaware County Board of Prison inspectors, which
oversees operations at the George W. Hill correctional Facility, told Warden
John D. Caulfield at a board meeting that some "guards are corrupt and
profit off of certain people's misfortune- the inmates who have trouble
getting off (tobacco)." Caulfield had just started his first day
on the job, replacing James Janecka, who had been assigned by Wackenhut
Corrections Corp., the company that has a contract with Delaware County to
operate the prison. John Reilly, the prison's assistant superintendent,
said after the meeting that an investigation in January concluded that
"there was a significant black market in cigarettes and narcotics"
at the prison. A search last month of one building turned up 117 packs
of cigarettes and money in excess of the amount prisoners are allowed to
have, Reilly said. Also, one guard was fired and two others were
disciplined earlier this year for allowing sexual contact between inmates and
visitors and for bringing in food, whiskey and cigarettes. Turnover and
understaffing at the prison are a longstanding problem that contributes to
contraband smuggling, Reilly said. The prison is 22 guards short, and
more than two-thirds of the staff had worked there for less than four
years. (Penna Edition)

March
7, 2002
Life behind bars at the Delaware County Prison wasn't so bad - if you had

a

little money and knew the right guard.

You could
get sex, booze, food, cigarettes and other comforts, according

to

an internal prison investigation.

But the gravy train
might be over. The "right guard" has been fired.

Delaware
County District Attorney Patricia Holsten said she was

investigating

the money-for-sex scheme for "possible criminal activity."

Reports say the guard, who has not been identified, permitted visitors

and

inmates to have sex in exchange for cash.

Holsten
said prison officials had never told her about the case. She had

to

read about it in the Delaware County Daily Times, which reported the

allegations

Monday after obtaining the results of an
internal prison investigation. Two other guards were disciplined
following the probe, Prison Board

Solicitor

Robert
DiOrio said. He said the investigation confirmed the officer had

permitted
male inmates to have intercourse with female visitors on several

occasions.

The prison, the George W. Hill Corrections Facility inConcord , is run by

October
9, 2001
Charles P. Sexton Jr. would like to see more prison cells - a lot more prison
cells - built at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility, Delaware County's
prison. It's not that Sexton, the head of the county board that
oversees the prison operation, is expecting a Delaware County crime wave. The
1,634-bed prison, opened in 1998 and operated for the county by Wackenhut
Corrections Corp., has more than enough space for all of the county's
inmates. Instead, he wants to greatly expand the county's current
practice of taking in prisoners from other counties, because that policy
brings in millions of dollars and promises millions more - money that could
help pay the substantial cost of housing Delaware County inmates. (The
Philadelphia Inquirer)

August
16, 2001
A suspended Delaware County prison guard surrendered to authorities yesterday
after a warrant was issued for his arrest in the stabbing of an inmate inside
his cell. Thernell Hardy Jr., 33, of Chester, voluntarily turned
himself in to the district attorney's office in Media. Delaware County
District Judge Richard M. Cappelli arraigned Hardy on charges of aggravated
assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and a weapons
offense. Hardy has worked for 22 months as a private guard at the George W.
Hill Correctional Facility in Concord Township. He posted 10 percent of
$5,000 bail and was released. The inmate, Kareem Bahiy, 22, who is awaiting
trial in the June 5 slaying of John Ostilio, the night manager of a CVS
pharmacy in Springfield, received four stitches to close a
three-quarters-of-an-inch cut on the right side of his neck Saturday night at
Crozer-Chester Hospital. (Daily News)

August
14, 2001
Delaware County authorities say a prison guard stabbed the accused killer of
a CVS pharmacy night manager inside his prison cell on Saturday night.
But the suspended guard, Thernall Hardy Jr., 33, of Chester, said he had been
struggling with the inmate when his arm slipped and his right thumbnail left
a gash in the prisoner's neck. Delaware County District Attorney
Patrick Meehan said Hardy would be charged with aggravated assault, simple
assault, recklessly endangering another person, and possession of an
instrument of crime. (Daily News)

July
26, 2001Five years ago, it was the corrections
industry equivalent of a Hollywood marriage: The Delaware County prison
contracted its

total operation - management, medical and food -
to Wackenhut. It would be the second-largest prison to be operated by
Wackenhut in the world, and the first county prison to be privatized in the
Northeast.

It's all over now, a marriage of five years
that was terminated in a week. "Nothing is forever," Sexton said
last week. "You've got to be ready when things change, and we were. "

What changed is that Delaware
County, borrowing a page from other governments, found a way to make money at
its prison. Wackenhut responded by saying it wasn't getting a fair
share of the proceeds. In 1998, Delaware County began taking inmates
from overflowing prisons in Chester County and the City of Philadelphia and
charged $55 and $57 a day respectively. (The fees have since risen to $58 and
$60 a day.) Meanwhile, it was paying

Wackenhut about $35 a
day for each prisoner (now up to about $39), regardless of county of
origin.

Now, the prison board, which has contracts to take
100 Chester County and 300 Philadelphia inmates, is looking to increase its

import business. It is about to open a 220-bed unit for minor
offenders, including repeat drunken-driving offenders. This will

free
up space in the main prison for more outsiders. Sexton says he is interested
in deals with the state, the Federal Bureau of

Prisons, and the
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Meanwhile, Wackenhut said the daily per-inmate fee of $39
wouldn't cover its increasing costs, especially the medical and

litigation
expenses posed by additional prisoners.

So it said it would end its contract to run the 1,538-bed
complex in western Delaware County on Nov. 11, and the prison

board
responded by saying it would run the prison - as it had before.

Now
cut Wackenhut out of the deal and add the 220 beds created by the opening of
the minor-offender unit. At a projected

rate of about $60 a day, that is 620 inmates times $60 times 365 days. That's
$13.6 million at full capacity. Let's figure the daily

average
will be only two-thirds of that. Now we're at about $9 million.

But
might we also be creating a public detriment by putting all these financial
incentives on filling Delaware County beds with

inmates from
elsewhere? Might decisions by the criminal justice system be based not on
what is right and fair for society and the

criminal, but rather
on what is financially most beneficial?

"Absolutely not," Sexton said.

I want to believe that, but first I want to see how this whole
new world of prisons as money makers shakes itself out. (The Inquirer)

July
19, 2001
Delaware County authorities will take over at least some operations of the
county prison once the private firm running the facility leaves in the fall.
The prison board voted 5-0 in favor of a resolution Wednesday not to seek a
third-party contractor to replace Wackenhut Corrections Corp. of Palm
Gardens, Fla. The company invoked an escape clause in its contract with the
prison board last week and will cede operations Nov. 11. Company officials
said Wackenhut was not making enough money to justify continuing the
arrangement. (AP)

July
11, 2001
Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (NYSE: WHC) today reported that it has
issued a 120-day notice to the Delaware County Board of Prison Inspectors,
pursuant to the terms of its contract, to discontinue its operation of the
George W. Hill Correctional Facility, located in Thornton, PA, effective,
midnight November 11, 2001. Mr. George C. Zoley, Vice Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer of Wackenhut Corrections, said, "We are pleased
with our accomplishments in Delaware County, including the development of a
new prison facility on time and under budget, saving the County approximately
$30 million over its initial construction cost estimates. However, we
have been unsuccessful in negotiating a proposed contract amendment with new
financial terms we believe are necessary to satisfactorily address the
county's planned intake of additional prisoners from outside the county and
risks of higher medical costs and litigation associated with such
prisoners. "The Delaware County Prison has been a financially
under-performing contract for some time. The discontinuance of this
contract eliminates the negative impact that higher than anticipated inmate
medical and litigation costs have had on our earnings over time. The
Company does not expect the discontinuation of the current management
contract to have any impact on the Company's financial guidance for the
fiscal year 2001," Mr. Zoley concluded. (PR Newswire)

May
30, 2001
A Delaware County prison guard turned herself in yesterday on charges of supplying
inmates with cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana, authorities said. Lisa
Clark, 27, of Philadelphia, was caught in April with 13 packs of cigarettes,
according to an incident report from the George W. Hill Correctional
Facility. She later admitted to Delaware County detectives that she had
been smuggling marijuana, cigarettes and alcohol into the prison to sell to
inmates, authorities said. (The Inquirer)

Hoffman HallPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
Community Education CentersJan 28, 2015 pennrecord.com
PHILADELPHIA - After rejecting a $425,000 settlement offer, a Philadelphia
man recently sued a firm that owns a private prison, claiming negligence on
the prison’s part after a fellow inmate allegedly beat him with a pipe.
Austin Walker filed the lawsuit against Community Education Centers, Inc.,
which owns Hoffman Hall in Philadelphia. Walker’s suit alleged the company
had a duty to protect him from other prisoners while he was incarcerated. The
lawsuit was filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on Dec. 4 but was
removed by the defendant to U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania on Jan. 14. In the removal notice, the defendant argues that
because Walker rejected its most recent settlement offer and demanded
$425,000, that the $75,000 threshold for federal jurisdiction has been met.
Walker alleges another prisoner attacked him at approximately 11 p.m. on
March 23, 2013, using a pipe and a small stabbing weapon. He said he was
struck in the head, face and chest. The suit further alleged no precautions
were taken at Hoffman Hall to prevent prisoners from obtaining materials that
could be used as weapons. Walker said he suffered multiple jaw fractures,
facial paresthesia, infections and other injuries that required multiple surgeries.
He is asking for more than $50,000 in damages. He is represented by Joel J.
Kofsky of the Law Offices of Joel J. Kofsky. In its removal notice, Community
Education Centers also argues that it is a Delaware corporation with its
principal place of business in New Jersey, and therefore there is diversity
of citizenship. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
case number 2:15-cv-00159.

Joseph E. Coleman
Center
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Community Education Centers
July 12, 2005 Philadelphia Daily News
An inmate at a halfway house in Juniata Park was found shot to death in his
room yesterday morning, police said. Geary Turner, 56, was shot once in the
chest and pronounced dead at the scene at about 8 a.m., said Sgt. John Taylor
of the homicide division. Security is tight at the Joseph E. Coleman Center,
named after the late City Council president. The 300-bed community
corrections center is occupied by ex-state prisoners. Though it is called a
halfway house, it looks like a medium security prison. The facility is
surrounded by high chain-link fences and barbed wire. Inmates may leave the
facility on work passes, but must return by night. The facility, which opened
in November 2001, is operated by a Roseland, N.J., company
called Community Education Centers. Last September, one of CEC's youth
facilities - the Wynona M. Lipman Education and Training Center in Newark -
came under fire when a prison worker severely beat a 17-year-old inmate.
Though CEC either fired or suspended 8 staff members, the facility had
admissions suspended by state officials due to the violence. Last month, the
Lipman center was permanently closed because of financial problems, just
three years after it had opened.

Lancaster County
Prison
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Correctional Care, Inc. (formerly run by Armor Correctional Health Services)February
20, 2008 The Times-Tribune
County officials are mum on a report released by the regional chapter of an
international justice advocacy group that calls for a number of reforms to
medical care at Lackawanna County Prison. In a report released to The
Times-Tribune, Pax Christi of Northeastern Pennsylvania alleges existing
conditions such as heart problems and broken ribs were not addressed when
inmates arrived, distribution of medication was deficient and sporadic,
requests for medical care were answered slowly, and prenatal care for
pregnant inmates was almost nonexistent. The report, based on face-to-face
surveys of 16 current or former inmates, also suggests medical care has been
rationed to boost profits for the medical care provider. “We feel there are
very, very serious criticisms that need to be followed up on,” said Father
William Pickard, who serves as chaplain for the county’s prison ministry
program on behalf of the Diocese of Scranton. Father Pickard also is a member
of the regional chapter of Pax Christi, an international Catholic nonprofit
group that advocates peace, justice and human rights. Provider under fire --
Medical care at the prison is provided under contract by Correctional Care
Inc., of Moosic, a company co-owned by the prison’s medical director, Dr.
Edward Zaloga. The report says the relationship is a potential conflict of
interest and suggests that money not spent on medical care results in higher
profits for CCI. “It’s an inference, but it would seem to be to his (Dr.
Zaloga’s) advantage, for example, not to fill medications,” said Joan Holmes,
a member of Pax Christi and volunteer with the prison ministry program.
Attempts to reach Dr. Zaloga were unsuccessful. It is not clear exactly how
Dr. Zaloga would directly benefit from limiting or denying care. Under its
five-year contract that expires Nov. 14, 2009, Correctional Care Inc. is paid
a flat fee of $250,000 a year regardless of medical expenses and is
reimbursed separately for all costs of medical care inside and outside the
prison. The report does say that inmates have “major consternation” with Dr.
Zaloga and says the fact “that the person best positioned to provide inmates
with care was the one they most disrespected was telling.” In the report —
dated Jan. 29 — Pax Christi recommended that the Prison Board hire an
independent party to evaluate the prison’s medical services. The purpose of
the study is not conflict, but change, said Mrs. Holmes. The idea for a
review was triggered by the birth of a baby in a prison cell on July 10,
Father Pickard said. Then-inmate Shakira Staten, 22, of Chambersburg, accused
Lackawanna County Prison officials of ignoring her repeated pleas to go to
the hospital before her daughter dropped from her womb and to the floor of a
cell monitored by a closed-circuit television camera. Although the Prison
Board initially denied the staff did anything wrong in that incident, county
officials later publicly apologized to Ms. Staten for what happened.
According to the report, Ms. Donate denied Pax Christi access to current
inmates. Father Pickard and Mrs. Holmes conducted interviews during regular
visits with prisoners as part of the prison ministry program. Joseph Rogan, Ed.D., heads the regional chapter of Pax Christi. Other
members of the prison health care review team included Sister Barbara Craig
of the Sisters of Mercy and Ann Marie Crowley. Inmates give examples -- The
report details many complaints registered by the interviewed inmates. Among
them were the claims of two women who were pregnant while incarcerated. The
report says the pregnant inmates received no checkups after entering the
prison, and “received inconsistent prenatal vitamins and received no prenatal
care.” Another inmate reportedly claimed that “medicines are routinely
replaced or unavailable to save the (medical care) firm money.” Several
complaints were reported about a lack of response to inmate requests to see a
doctor or to file grievances about medical care denials. “A few did get the
care they requested ... ,” the report says. “Most,
however, reported that their requests were ignored, or, if addressed at all,
only very slowly. When they did get attention, in many cases no treatments
were prescribed. One (inmate) was told that he was just getting old.” The
report said two interviewed inmates independently confirmed that when one
inmate they knew filed a grievance about medical care, the “entire unit was
locked down while a guard read the details of the inmate’s complete medical
history over the intercom for all to hear.” None of the interview subjects is
identified in the report, and it contains a disclaimer that says some
responses “may have been colored by personal motives.” However, the document
also says that there were underlying themes amid the responses that triggered
the recommendations. “We thought there was enough of a common thread there to
release the report,” Father Pickard said. “I could tell by (the inmates’)
emotions that they were sincere, that they went through a terrible ordeal.
They weren’t play-acting. It was very obvious in the interaction I had with
them.” Prisoners faced possible retribution by answering the survey
questions, Father Pickard said. The committee recorded a majority of the
inmates’ names, and Father Pickard said the committee verified what inmates
told them “as best they could.” However, Mrs. Holmes admitted they did not
have a way to verify all claims. Pax Christi received 38 responses when input
was solicited, but was only able to interview 16 people because of time and
logistical constraints. Of the 16 people who responded, 14 were current
inmates. The report recommends that the Prison Board: Review the prison’s
inmate intake procedures. Review the prison’s medical response procedures.
Review the possibility that inmates with mental health issues could be better
placed. Review whether inmates who have substance-abuse problems could be
served through treatment and education. Review the prison’s policies and
procedures related to pregnant inmates. Review the prison’s food-service
system to determine whether inmates receive proper nutrition. Officials not talking -- County communications director
Lynne Shedlock said the study was referred to Prison Warden Janine Donate, who
was not immediately available for comment. “There is no further comment until
the warden has had a chance to review it,” Ms. Shedlock said. “She’ll present
a report back to the Prison Board at the appropriate time.” Majority
Commissioner Mike Washo, who chairs the board, was out of town and not
available for comment. Minority Commissioner A.J. Munchak, who served as
Prison Board chair when he was majority commissioner through last year,
deferred questions to Mr. Washo. “Any official response has to come from the
chairman,” Mr. Munchak said. Commissioner Corey O’Brien, also a member of the
Prison Board, declined comment as well. In addition to the three county
commissioners, the Prison Board includes District Attorney Andy Jarbola,
Sheriff John Szymanski , Judge Vito Geroulo and
County Controller Ken McDowell. Mr. McDowell said he read the study and
anticipates the warden will review it and make a report to the Prison Board.
Efforts to reach Mr. Jarbola, Mr. Szymanski and Judge Geroulo were
unsuccessful.

September
22, 2006 Intelligencer JournalCharges will not be filed against the head of a Florida-based private
medical services company unless new information comes to light, District
Attorney Don Totaro said Thursday. Doyle Moore, CEO of Armor Correctional
Health Services, was being investigated by Totaro’s office for allegedly
falsifying information on an application for a county contract. Totaro based
his decision on an affidavit Armor submitted in February when it applied for
a 5-year, $17-million contract to provide all medical services to Lancaster
County Prison. The affidavit — one of three submitted by Armor — sought
information on “employee criminal history.” A county detective discovered
Moore was convicted in Massachusetts in 1994 of tax evasion, a felony
offense. Moore was sentenced to 2 years in prison, but he never served jail
time, according to an article in the Boston Globe, because a judge suspended
the prison term. Moore also was fined $68,650 and ordered to pay all legal
costs, the paper reported. The instructions on the “employee criminal
history” affidavit required the person completing it to place his or her
initials next to one of two statements: The first stated no one who would
work on “this contract” has ever been convicted of a misdemeanor or felony or
has any criminal action pending. The second stated some employees have been
convicted of crimes and instructs the person completing the document to list
the names of those workers. An “X,” rather than someone’s initials, was typed
on the line next to the first statement. “This affidavit was the only one of
the three that did not include space for a signature or a notary seal,”
Totaro said. Although Moore signed the two other affidavits, Totaro said
there was no way to prove he completed the third one because it had no
signature and no initials on it. Had Totaro been able to prove Moore
completed the document, Moore could have been charged with falsifying an
official document because of his criminal record. “There is no way for us to
prove who completed this” affidavit of employee criminal history, Totaro
said. “Our burden of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt, and we cannot meet
that burden.” ••• In June, county prison Warden Vince Guarini told the prison
board Armor was the most qualified firm to provide medical services to the
county prison. He has been pushing for about a year to outsource those
services to save money and because the current in-house program is
understaffed and cannot provide sufficient care to the prison’s 1,200 inmates.
With Guarini’s endorsement, the prison board voted at its
June meeting to recommend the county commissioners negotiate a
contract with Armor. But shortly after the commissioners were charged with
that task, Commissioner Molly Henderson has said, the board received e-mails
from the public regarding the track record of Armor and several of its
executives, including Moore. James Laughman, the county’s interim director of
human services, said the e-mails contained newspaper articles that suggested
Armor and its executives had used various forms of influence to procure
contracts to provide prison medical care, primarily in Florida, and that
Moore’s former company, Prison Health Services, had been sued several times
for providing poor service to its customers. Guarini said he received that
information, too, moving him to ask the district attorney’s office to
investigate. That is when the county detective discovered Moore’s 1994 tax
evasion conviction. Guarini has said he knew nothing about Moore’s conviction
before the detective discovered it. ••• Contracting for prison health care is
new to Lancaster County, said Totaro, who sits on the county’s prison board.
Guarini, who said he’s known Moore for more than 30 years (the two worked
together in the 1970s when Guarini was deputy warden of Delaware County’s
prison and Moore was a health care professional there), was responsible for
the process of soliciting bids and reviewing contracts. “The documents the
county sent out to potential bidders were provided by the warden,” Totaro
said. “The warden obtained these documents from Armor.” Guarini deferred all
comment on the Armor situation to Laughman. Laughman said “there were serious
flaws throughout the process.” “It appears going to Armor (for documents used
in the bidding process) was a huge concern,” he said. Laughman also said he
found it “alarming” the affidavit of employee criminal history did not
require a notarized signature of the person who completed it. Totaro
concurred with Laughman’s assessment of the process. “It most certainly was
flawed,” he said. Armor’s attorney could not be reached Thursday for comment.
As the county moves forward with its search for a prison health care
provider, Laughman and county solicitor Don LeFever will oversee the process.
“We are starting over again from square one,” Totaro said. He added that he
is “confident” the process has been corrected.

Lackawanna County
Jail
Correctional Care, Inc., National Corrective Group (formerly run by PrimeCare)
January 29, 2010 Courthouse News
Now they're privatizing the justice system. It's not enough that we hire
mercenaries to fight our wars and interrogate our prisoners overseas, and let
private companies imprison our citizens at home, now we're letting private
debt collectors use district attorneys' letterhead to threaten people with
jail - so long as the collectors kick back some money to the district
attorneys. I didn't believe it either, until I read Courthouse News reporter
Erin McCauley's story this week, and read for myself the federal class action
Shouse v. National Corrective Group and Andrew Jarbola III. But there it is,
in a federal court filing. The class claims that "approximately
twenty" Pennsylvania counties have contracts with the National
Corrective Group, allowing it to use the counties' "district attorney
brand." Lackawanna County District Attorney Andrew Jarbola - the only
named DA defendant - "permits NCG to use his office, his official
letterhead and his signature in communicating with individuals who have issued
checks which have been dishonored," according
to the complaint. "NCG thereupon uses the district attorney's identity
in threatening prosecution and imprisonment, stating or implying that
criminal charges have been filed and that court appearances will be required,
and stating that payments are due that far exceed the amount of the
dishonored check." The debt collectors also tell debtors - in violation
of Pennsylvania law - that they may not pay their creditors directly: they
have to pay the National Corrective Group, masquerading as the district
attorney, and they have to pay extra, according to the complaint. The class
claims that Jarbola and other district attorneys have "authorized NCG to
use their name, signature and letterhead to charge individuals numerous incidental
fees over and above an administrative and accountability class fee. These
incidental fees include late payment fees, rescheduling fees,
payment/convenience fees and overpayment/handling fees. "Pursuant to the
contract with NCG, Defendant Jarbola receives 100 percent of the
administrative fees generated by NCG. NCG receives 100 percent of the class
fees and incidental fees." Let us pause for a moment, to let this sink
in. I'm not a lawyer, but I know a constitutional violation when I see one.
I'm not an expert on elephants either, but I'd know it if you dropped a dead
elephant in my living room. After these bogus, private district attorneys
browbeat and effectively extort money from debtors, with threats of jail, I
wonder if they really could send them to prison?
They could send them to one of the dozens of private prisons that incarcerate
thousands of people all over the country. I've worked in private prisons, and
I know what the private contract does - it enables both the government and
the private company to duck liability for what goes on inside the walls. We
all know what our private mercenary armies have done in Iraq. Remember the
Blackwater guards who were charged with murdering 17 people, for no
particular reason, in Baghdad's Nisour Square? Those charges were dismissed
because of government misconduct. That's what a private contract does, and
despite any claims you may hear to the contrary, that's what it is supposed
to do: to let both the government and the mercenaries walk. The U.S. Navy
hires private contractors to scrub and paint ships at its San Diego base,
leaving the sailors free to do - what? Our 535 water boys in Congress push
privatization of government services because it's supposed to be cheaper and
more "efficient." But how is it efficient to pay a private company
to do what sailors would have to do anyway? It's just another way to curry
favor with campaign contributors. We let bankers write our banking
regulations; we let hedge fund sharks write the no-rules for hedge funds; for
eight years we let oil companies write our energy and environmental policies;
and now we've made it possible for U.S. citizens to be threatened with jail
by bogus, private "prosecutors," and sent to private prisons. All
that's left is to let private companies set up private courts to try people -
perhaps corporations could try their own employees, and punish them in their
own private jails. They could charge advertisers for naming rights to the prisons, like we do with our sports temples ... I mean
stadiums. The system going on today in Pennsylvania resembles in many ways
the system of "tax farming" under Louis XVI. French tax farmers
paid off the king and then got to keep all the taxes they could collect from
the people. Do you recall how that worked out? King Louis ended up a head
shorter.

December
15, 2009 Times-TribuneCounty commissioners are expected to sign a new contract with the current
Lackawanna County Prison medical care provider today that will ensure the
cost of medical care at the prison, in the future at least, is not kept
secret. But the new contract will be signed despite Correctional Care's
refusal to hand over, or make public, detailed financial records to prove
what the cost of medical care at the prison has been during the last five
years. Meanwhile, the commissioners and county controller's office approved
paying $114,083 to Correctional Care to cover hospital bills, $75,000 of
which was paid without receipts to back up the payment. Not until last month
were county officials given access to the records, and only then under a
confidentiality agreement, which barred discussing or making copies of the
records, or taking notes. Majority Commissioner Mike Washo said the county
prison board, of which the commissioners are a part, made demands of Correctional
Care, and those demands have been met. "We may not have been fully
satisfied with (Correctional Care) not releasing records, but we have to look
at the impact on the county budget. We have to look at the whole picture. I'm
confident we made the right choice," Mr. Washo said. Though a
confidentiality agreement is in place, the county still has a lawsuit, filed
in September, to compel Correctional Care to make public its financial
records related to medical service at the county prison. Part of the suit is
to satisfy the state Office of Open Records, which ruled that financial
records related to Correctional Care's pharmacy must be turned over to the
president of the local chapter of a Catholic human rights advocacy group. The
group, Pax Christi, represented by the ACLU of Pennsylvania and Cozen
O'Connor law firm, has joined the suit on the county's side. While the county
had refused to pay Correctional Care any additional expenses without first
seeing receipts for payments - the exception is a $143,660 monthly bill
required by the previous contract - the commissioners last month approved two
payments to the vendor for hospital bills. One payment, worth $39,083, was
made so Correctional Care could settle a lawsuit filed by Community Medical
Center against the prison vendor and the county for $135,000. The three
parties settled the matter out of court, said county solicitor Larry Moran,
and the lawsuit was discontinued. CMC spokeswoman Jane Gaul declined to
comment on the settlement. Efforts to reach Dr. Edward Zaloga, the prison
medical director and co-owner of Correctional Care, were unsuccessful. A
second payment of $75,000 was made to Correctional Care to pay bills at Moses
Taylor Hospital. Mr. Washo said there was concern about whether inmates would
be accepted in the future because bills hadn't been paid. Moses Taylor
spokeswoman Meaghan Comerford confirmed Correctional Care made a payment to
the hospital, but declined to comment otherwise. But that second payment to
Correctional Care was not supported by receipts for the expenses, said county
Chief Financial Officer Tom Durkin. Mr. Washo said the decision to pay
$75,000 - without receipts - was made because Mr. Durkin had reviewed the
records for Correctional Care, under the confidentiality agreement, and
determined the county owed at least in excess of that. "We knew we owed
them money. This was an amount we were comfortable providing them because we
saw documentation in excess of that amount," he said. The county will
not make further payments until Correctional Care has given the county
adequate information, Mr. Washo said. Mr. Durkin said he doesn't know yet how
much the county owes Correctional Care under the previous contract - no other
bills have been submitted by the vendor in addition to the hospital bills. In
a countersuit to the county's September lawsuit, Correctional Care had
indicated $471,931 was still owed by the county. Efforts were unsuccessful to
ask Controller Ken McDowell on Monday why his office approved the payment
without backup documentation. Speaking in general terms on the Correctional
Care issue last week, Mr. McDowell said he would not authorize payment
"unless I am satisfied it is reasonable and that we were provided with
satisfactory evidence of such."

December
2, 2009 The Times-TribuneA national law firm has agreed to represent the local chapter of a
Catholic human rights advocacy group in its fight to obtain financial records
from the medical care provider for Lackawanna County Prison.
Philadelphia-based Cozen O'Connor and the American Civil Liberties Union of
Pennsylvania filed a motion Monday on behalf of Pax Christi to intervene and
join with Lackawanna County in its lawsuit against its prison health care
vendor, Correctional Care Inc. The county lawsuit asks that Correctional Care
be compelled to release detailed financial records related to pharmaceutical
services, so the county can comply with a state Office of Open Records ruling
that found the records must handed over to Pax Christi. The lawsuit also
requests Correctional Care be compelled to release all financial receipts and
invoices to back up county payments it has received for services. Since the
suit was filed in September, the county and Correctional Care signed a
confidentiality agreement allowing only county Chief Financial Officer Tom
Durkin and county Deputy Controller Reggie Mariani to view the records.
Although a confidentiality agreement is in place, solicitor John O'Brien said
the county is still pursuing release of all financial records. The motion to
intervene taken Monday adds the weight of Cozen O'Connor and the ACLU to the
county's suit. "The more interests, motivations and legal rights put
forward to obtain these documents, the better chance we have of getting
them," said ACLU staff attorney Valerie Burch. Cozen O'Connor, which
recently opened a branch office in Wilkes-Barre, is one of the largest law
firms in the U.S. "Our plan is to cooperate with the county to get those
documents," Cozen O'Connor attorney Micah Knapp said. Attempts to reach
Edward Zaloga, M.D., owner of Correctional Care, were unsuccessful. Despite
the lawsuit, the county and Correctional Care are in
negotiations on a new contract. The current contract was extended by a month,
until Dec. 15, to work out details on a new contract. Cozen O'Connor and the
ACLU are also seeking a special injunction to ensure
records from Correctional Care's current contract are not destroyed.

November
11, 2009 The Times-TribuneThe Lackawanna County Prison Board unanimously approved a new contract
for its prison health care vendor based on a proposal that did not include
details other bidders were required to submit. Meanwhile, one of the rejected
bidders said his proposal could have been more cost-effective than the one
submitted by Correctional Care Inc., but county officials did not give him an
opportunity to clarify or negotiate costs in the proposal. Correctional Care
provided no cost estimates for the next three years for hospitalization,
pharmaceuticals or any indication of what staffing levels will be under the
new contract, as required by the county's October request for proposals.
Instead, the company made reference to a large packet of financial records
given to prison board members Oct. 26. Correctional Care didn't have to
provide new information on staffing levels or costs because the firm has
already proven itself, said minority Commissioner A.J. Munchak, a prison
board member and longtime friend of Dr. Edward Zaloga, prison medical
director and co-owner of Correctional Care. Asked if he knew how much it will
cost the county to send inmates to hospitals for treatment under Correctional
Care's proposal, Mr. Munchak said, "I'm not going to do your research
for you." Efforts to reach Dr. Zaloga were unsuccessful. Tom Durkin, the
county's chief financial officer, estimated the county's cost to send inmates
to a hospital under the current contract with Correctional Care has been less
than $103,000 per year, based on records the vendor provided to the prison
board. However, he acknowledged he could not say for sure how much it cost
because the records were not specific. Because Correctional Care provides no
breakdown of estimated costs for services in its proposal, there is no way to
determine how much the company is budgeting for hospitalization in its $6.7
million bid, Mr. Durkin acknowledged. How much Correctional Care budgets for
hospitalization matters because the county must pay the difference if costs
exceed the vendor's estimate. Prison board members
raised this concern in rejecting the proposal of Health Professionals
Limited. The Denver, Colo.-based vendor submitted a bid with a price
significantly lower than Correctional Care. Correctional Care's new contract
will cost $187,237 a month, compared to $143,660 a month under the previous
deal. Health Professionals Limited submitted a proposal that would have cost
$147,050 a month. Health Professionals Limited left out the cost of
hospitalization and underestimated staffing needs and the cost of
pharmaceuticals, Mr. Durkin and prison board members said. For instance,
Health Professionals included funding for a physician/medical director who
would work only 12 hours per week. Dr. Zaloga is at the prison 40 hours a
week, Mr. Munchak said. "They grossly misrepresented themselves,"
said District Attorney and prison board member Andy Jarbola. "They
basically tried to misinform us." Dr. Larry Wolk, chief operations and
medical officer of Health Professionals Limited and a native of Lackawanna
County, denied any misrepresentation and said the company would have answered
the prison board's questions if asked. "We do this for 190 jails in 20
states," Dr. Wolk said. "To say that we don't know what the cost is, is pretty inaccurate." The Health Professionals
proposal estimated costs for pharmaceuticals at $140,000 a year.
Pharmaceuticals have cost an average $253,000 a year since Correctional Care
took over at the prison in November 2004, Mr. Durkin said. Dr. Wolk said his
company can obtain lower prices for medications because of its size. "By
our estimates, Lackawanna County is spending a lot, lot more than they should
be (for pharmaceuticals)," he said. Majority Commissioner Corey O'Brien
said the prison board had a sense of staffing levels needed at the prison and
what the cost of hospitalization was. With that information, it decided
Correctional Care offered the better deal. He said Health Professionals
Limited was not called because "we did not have questions on their
proposal." "(Correctional Care was) the lowest, most responsible
bidder," he said. The prison board on Friday approved a $6.7 million
contract with Correctional Care after the county agreed to a confidentiality
agreement that allowed county officials to view company records, but forbid
them from discussing the records, making copies or taking notes. The county
had to file a lawsuit to gain access to detailed financial records in
September after Correctional Care refused to turn them over. Dr. Wolk said he
was surprised by an arrangement in which a prison medical care provider would
retain ownership and control of receipts, invoices and other financial
records related to billing. "We may be the vendor that's providing the
health care, but we consider that information to be property of the
county," Dr. Wolk said.

November
10, 2009 The Times-Tribune
A confidentiality agreement between Lackawanna County and its prison health
care vendor is "legally inappropriate" and does not supersede the
state's Right to Know Law, said attorneys with the American Civil Liberties
Union and Pennsylvania Newspaper Association. Lackawanna County entered into
a confidentiality agreement with Correctional Care Inc. last week, clearing
the way for county officials to inspect financial records of the vendor. The
county filed a lawsuit to gain access to the records in September, after
Correctional Care refused to turn them over. The county's suit was filed in
part so it could comply with a state Office of Open Records ruling that the
records be released to Pax Christi, a Catholic human rights advocacy group.
In October, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of Pax Christi. The county's suit
remains active, despite the confidentiality agreement, under which county
officials are forbidden to discuss, make copies or take notes related to the
Correctional Care records. The county's position remains that Correctional
Care must release the records to the public, majority Commissioner Corey
O'Brien said Monday. He said the county agreed to the confidentiality
agreement because it was the only way to obtain quick access to the records
before deciding on a new prison health care contract. Correctional Care's
original contract was set to expire Sunday. The Lackawanna County Prison
Board unanimously approved a new three-year, $6.7 million contract with
Correctional Care on Friday. The contract still must be approved by county
commissioners. "We believe it's public
information," Mr. O'Brien said of the financial records.
"(Correctional Care) disagrees. We've not waived any claims with respect
to what is public information." The courts have repeatedly ruled that
confidentiality agreements between a public agency and a second party are
inappropriate and unenforceable, said Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for
the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association. She questioned the county awarding a
new contract to a vendor that refuses to release documents that by law are
public records. "It's legally inappropriate. ... And I question why an
agency would renew a contract with someone who doesn't comply with the
law," she said. "Any vendor that doesn't want to recognize legal
authority shouldn't be a government contractor anymore." County
Solicitor John O'Brien agreed that a confidentiality agreement is not
enforceable if the records are public - but said it will take a court
decision to determine whether they must be released. In a defining case,
Lackawanna County Judge Terrence R. Nealon ruled in September that records of
an agency vendor are public if the vendor is performing a government
function. He ruled that SWB Yankees, the management group that operates
Lackawanna County's minor-league baseball team and stadium, cannot keep its
contracts with concessionaires secret from taxpayers. The ACLU is reviewing
the action taken by the county and will continue to seek the records on
behalf of Pax Christi, said Valerie Burch, an ACLU staff attorney. "The
right to view these financial records belongs to the people," she said.
"The county does not have the power to contract that right away."
Pax Christi's determination to obtain the records has not diminished, said
Joseph Rogan, Ed.D., president of the local chapter.
He said he was surprised the county's one-day review of Correctional Care's
books was adequate to award a new $6.7 million contract. "If this is the
way the county conducts its financial affairs, it's no wonder that it is in
such dire straits," Dr. Rogan said.

October
3, 2009 The Times-TribuneA proposal by Correctional Care Inc. to provide medical care to
Lackawanna County Prison will cost $1.2 million more per year than the
service the company currently provides, a review of four medical care
provider proposals shows. But even if county officials went with the lowest
bidder, Correctional Telecare Solutions, the cost of medical care would be
$1.1 million more per year. The county made public Thursday the four proposals
submitted for medical care provider at the county prison. Last week, the
Lackawanna County Prison Board voted 5-2 to exclusively negotiate a contract
with Correctional Care and discard the three other proposals. The vote came
two days after a lawsuit was filed raising concerns about the accountability
of Correctional Care, which has refused to release financial records to
reconcile bills submitted to the county. The county filed suit Sept. 28 to
compel Correctional Care to release the financial records and information
about its pharmacy vendor, which the company has refused even to name. County
taxpayers pay $1.7 million annually to provide medical care to the prison
under the current contract with Correctional Care. But without financial
invoices to back up the cost from Correctional Care, it is unclear what the
actual cost is. Dr. Patrick Conaboy, who submitted a proposal through a
Scranton startup company Epidarus Medical Management, said he couldn't be
sure how accurate his bid was because the prison was unable to provide direct
financial information on its medical care. "If they were able to supply
better information, I think it would have changed the pricing totally,"
Dr. Conaboy said. Dr. Conaboy, who realized he was a "dark horse"
pick because he was a startup company, said he also offered a one-year
contract in his proposal that could be renegotiated once he understood what
the costs were to provide medical care. In its proposal, Correctional Care
priced the cost per year to provide medical care at between $2,630,287 for
900 inmates and $2,919,619 for 1,000 inmates. Correctional Telecare, the low
bidder, would cost on average per year between $2,591,148 for 900 inmates and
$2,879,053 for 1,000 inmates. The county prison population fluctuates between
900 and 1,000 inmates. No matter the outcome of the prison board meeting,
majority Commissioners Corey O'Brien and Mike Washo said there isn't an extra
$1 million in the county budget available to pay for medical care at the
prison. "I've said that relentlessly now, we can't afford these
proposals," Mr. Washo said. He recommended scrapping all the proposals
and starting over. "I don't know where the money would come from, I have
no idea, but we're not raising the taxes." Epidarus Medical Management
submitted a proposal to offer services on an average of $3.1 million a year,
with no mention of an amount per inmate. Harrisburg-based Primecare Medical,
which manages medical care for 31 prisons, submitted a proposal that would
have cost on average $3.8 million a year for 850 inmates. In a letter to the
editor published in The Times-Tribune on Friday, minority Commissioner A.J.
Munchak questioned the county's timing in filing a lawsuit against
Correctional Care two days before proposals were discussed by the prison board.
Mr. Munchak pointed out county solicitor Larry Moran is the brother-in-law of
Epidarus owner, Dr. Conaboy. As chief solicitor of litigation for the county,
Mr. Moran handled filing the lawsuit against Correctional Care. Asked Friday
if he was suggesting impropriety by Mr. Moran or the majority commissioners,
Mr. Munchak would say only "the timing is suspect." Mr. O'Brien and
Mr. Washo called any implication of impropriety "ludicrous."
"A.J. must be confusing us with his administration. I'm not going to
dignify that kind of comment with a response," Mr. O'Brien said. Mr.
Washo said the timing of the lawsuit was coincidental and the issues raised
in the lawsuit against Correctional Care had been developing for months. Mr.
Moran called Mr. Munchak's comments "despicable" and said they were
made to divert attention from Correctional Care and its co-owner, Edward
Zaloga, M.D., a longtime friend of Mr. Munchak. "I think his smokescreen
bomb is a dud," Mr. Moran said. "It's a transparent effort to
divert scrutiny from his lifelong friend, a friend who despite a ruling of
the (state) open records office and a lawsuit has refused to account for the
expenditures of millions of dollars over five years." Dr. Conaboy, who
also denied any impropriety. "More than half the city is related to me
in someway," he said. "I will tell you I never had a single
discussion with anybody in the commissioner's office."

September
25, 2009 Scranton Times
A Lackawanna County Prison inmate made half a dozen requests seeking medical
help for a severe skin condition, but was ignored until the American Civil
Liberties Union intervened, an ACLU attorney said Thursday. The inmate's
condition became so severe it shocked Valerie A. Burch, an attorney with the
ACLU of Pennsylvania. "He looked like a burn victim," she said.
"He had severe psoriasis all over his body. His skin was cracked and
bleeding. It was immediately apparent this man was not getting the treatment
he needed." Prison advocacy group Pax Christi and the ACLU of Pennsylvania
brought the case of inmate Cal Burns, 32, to light after a decision by the
Lackawanna County Prison Board to negotiate a new contract with the current
prison medical care provider, Correctional Care Inc. The decision was made on
a 5-2 vote, with majority county Commissioners Corey O'Brien and Mike Washo
voting against negotiating with Correctional Care and discarding proposals
from three other medical care providers. Board members who voted for
retaining the company said they are satisfied with the medical care provided
at the prison. Told of the board's action, Ms. Burch said she was surprised.
The ACLU receives more inmate complaints about medical care at Lackawanna
County Prison than from any other prison in the state, she said. Complaints
are so common, she said, they are immediately assigned an attorney, bypassing
a standard screening process. "This is one (prison) we've been watching
because we do think the medical care at Lackawanna County Prison is
bad," Ms. Burch said. The ACLU and Pax Christi are each actively
investigating complaints at Lackawanna County Prison, according to officials
at both organizations. However, they said it is difficult to measure exactly
how many complaints they receive. Mr. Burns remains in the prison and could
not be interviewed Thursday. He gave Ms. Burch permission to speak with The
Times-Tribune on his behalf. Ms. Burch said she visited the prison in March
to interview Mr. Burns. The inmate's pain was so intense, he could not sleep,
Ms. Burch said. Mr. Burns submitted six requests for medical treatment over a
period of several weeks, she said, but prison officials failed to respond.
"Before jail, he was getting injections that kept him completely healthy
and normal," she said. "In prison, he wasn't getting the same
treatment. They reduced it to a cream, which was obviously inadequate."
Ms. Burch said she sent a letter to Warden Janine Donate, threatening a cruel
and unusual punishment suit if Mr. Burns did not receive different treatment.
Soon after, proper treatment was given, and Mr. Burns has since recovered,
Ms. Burch said. Citing medical privacy laws, Ms. Donate refused to discuss
Mr. Burns' case, or the claim his requests for treatment went unanswered. She
insisted Correctional Care provides satisfactory medical care to inmates. The
state Bureau of Corrections gave Lackawanna County Prison a 100 percent
rating in 2009 for an inspection that included questions about medical care,
she noted. "We've been inspected on state and federal levels several
times since 2004 ... and we've never had any notable issues," she said.
"So on an objective level, yes, they're doing
what they're supposed to be doing within the standard of a medical provider
of the prison." Minority county Commissioner A.J. Munchak, Judge Vito P.
Geroulo, District Attorney Andy Jarbola, Controller Ken McDowell and Sheriff
John Szymanski - the prison board members who voted for negotiating a new
contract with Correctional Care - said they were unfamiliar with Mr. Burns'
case and stood by their votes Thursday. "There are a couple of people who are dissatisfied with the care and that's
the basis of (complaints)," Mr. Munchak said. "The bottom line is
medical complaints have decreased substantially." Mr. Jarbola said
claims made by Pax Christi can't be trusted. "I don't give Pax Christi
any credibility whatsoever," he said, declining to elaborate. He said he
is unaware of any ACLU concerns with the prison, but would be open to hearing
about them. Judge Geroulo, who regularly speaks with inmates, said it is
"extremely rare" he receives complaints about medical care at the
prison. "I get hundreds of letters per year directly from prisoners, I
question any prisoner before me that looks like they need medical attention
and I immediately speak with the warden if there is a problem," the
judge said. Judge Geroulo said he is aware of inmate complaints about the
types of medications they receive. He said Correctional Care told him while
some medications may have different brand names,
inmates are receiving the same types and quality of medicine. The judge said
he was unfamiliar with Mr. Burns' experience, and could not comment. Pax
Christi has never been concerned with who is providing medical care at the
prison, said Joseph Rogan, Ed.D., president of the
local chapter. "We've never asked to have anybody replaced," he
said. "What we've asked for is good health care and we believe the
county has a duty to take care of their inmates."

May
7, 2008 The Times-TribuneThe medical care provider at Lackawanna County Prison filed a lawsuit against
the president of a local social justice advocacy group, alleging defamation,
slander and interference with contract because of a report that blasted
prison health care. Correctional Care Inc., of Moosic, filed a three-count
complaint against Joseph Rogan, Ed.D., seeking
damages in excess of $50,000. Mr. Rogan, who heads Pax Christi of
Northeastern Pennsylvania, said he had not seen the lawsuit as of Tuesday
afternoon. Pax Christi, an international nonprofit Catholic organization that
advocates peace, justice and human rights, issued a report calling for major
reform of the prison’s medical care. Specifically, the lawsuit alleges
tortious interference with existing contractual relations, intentional
interference with prospective contractual relations, and defamation, libel
and slander. The report suggested prenatal care was inadequate and requests
for medical care were answered slowly, among other things. The report, based
on face-to-face surveys of 16 current or former inmates, also suggested
distribution of medication was deficient. “Mr. Rogan acted irresponsibly and
without sufficient due diligence in issuing his report, and as a result, has
harmed our client,” said attorney James Scanlon, representing CCI. Pax
Christi submitted the report to the Prison Board on Jan. 29. Warden Janine
Donate subsequently issued a response dismissing the allegations at a Prison
Board meeting March 12. Minority Commissioner A.J. Munchak, who formerly
served as Prison Board chairman, had not seen the lawsuit but said he was
surprised one hadn’t been filed sooner.

March
13, 2008 The Times-TribuneSeveral members of the Lackawanna County Prison Board on Wednesday railed
against a review of prison health care released last month by the regional
branch of an international social justice group. Pax Christi, a Catholic
nonprofit group that advocates peace, justice and human rights, undertook the
project after the birth of a baby in a prison cell in July. Among a multitude
of Pax Christi’s allegations rebutted by Warden Janine Donate were deficient
distribution of medication, ignored inmate requests for care and almost
nonexistent prenatal care. Ms. Donate assured the Prison Board that pregnant
inmates are given appropriate prenatal care and prenatal vitamins. “As for
the allegation that inmates are ignored and services have significant delays,
it’s simply not accurate,” she said. The survey’s eight recommendations were
based on 16 face-to-face interviews with current and former inmates. Fourteen
were current inmates interviewed by members of the prison ministry program.
However, Pax Christi was denied access to prison inmates when Joseph Rogan, Ed.D., head of the regional Pax Christi chapter, made the
request in December. Ms. Donate said she denied the request because she’d
never met Dr. Rogan and did not know who the other members of the review team
were or what qualifications they had to conduct a health care survey.
District Attorney Andy Jarbola, a member of the Prison Board, questioned the
qualifications of the review team and the way in which the study was
conducted. “I have a huge problem with this report,” he said. “We have no
idea whether these individuals have done such a survey in any other prison or
institution anywhere in Pennsylvania or the United States.” Compared with the
5,000 inmates incarcerated since Correctional Care Inc., of Moosic, took over
the prison’s medical care, the number of complaints was minuscule, Mr.
Jarbola said. “If you’re only talking about 16 complaints over 5,000, that’s
less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the individuals that were incarcerated,”
Mr. Jarbola said. Other members of the health care review team included the
Rev. William Pickard, Joan Holmes, Sister Barbara Craig, of the Sisters of
Mercy, and Ann Marie Crowley. Members of Pax Christi were not specifically
invited to Wednesday’s Prison Board meeting. The group has not been contacted
by county officials and only knew the warden was reviewing its findings from
a Feb. 20 article in The Times-Tribune. Contacted later by phone, Dr. Rogan
said he hopes the commissioners send a response. “Nothing changes in terms of
our views,” Dr. Rogan said, adding that he expects the group will make a
decision about how to proceed at its next meeting March 26. “I would guess
(the group) would be interested in pursuing it further. It’s not expected
that we drop the ball now.” Minority Commissioner A.J. Munchak, former Prison
Board chairman, said the report should not have been given credence by the
board. “All it is, is a shot at our prison and a
shot at the doctor who’s running this,” he said of Dr. Edward Zaloga, the
prison’s medical director and his longtime friend. “I think it’s absolutely
terrible, and if it were up to me, this wouldn’t have even been addressed
here today in public.”

February
20, 2008 The Times-TribuneCounty officials are mum on a report released by the regional chapter of
an international justice advocacy group that calls for a number of reforms to
medical care at Lackawanna County Prison. In a report released to The
Times-Tribune, Pax Christi of Northeastern Pennsylvania alleges existing
conditions such as heart problems and broken ribs were not addressed when
inmates arrived, distribution of medication was deficient and sporadic,
requests for medical care were answered slowly, and prenatal care for
pregnant inmates was almost nonexistent. The report, based on face-to-face
surveys of 16 current or former inmates, also suggests medical care has been
rationed to boost profits for the medical care provider. “We feel there are
very, very serious criticisms that need to be followed up on,” said Father
William Pickard, who serves as chaplain for the county’s prison ministry
program on behalf of the Diocese of Scranton. Father Pickard also is a member
of the regional chapter of Pax Christi, an international Catholic nonprofit
group that advocates peace, justice and human rights. Provider under fire --
Medical care at the prison is provided under contract by Correctional Care
Inc., of Moosic, a company co-owned by the prison’s medical director, Dr. Edward
Zaloga. The report says the relationship is a potential conflict of interest
and suggests that money not spent on medical care results in higher profits
for CCI. “It’s an inference, but it would seem to be to his (Dr. Zaloga’s)
advantage, for example, not to fill medications,” said Joan Holmes, a member
of Pax Christi and volunteer with the prison ministry program. Attempts to
reach Dr. Zaloga were unsuccessful. It is not clear exactly how Dr. Zaloga
would directly benefit from limiting or denying care. Under its five-year
contract that expires Nov. 14, 2009, Correctional Care Inc. is paid a flat
fee of $250,000 a year regardless of medical expenses and is reimbursed
separately for all costs of medical care inside and outside the prison. The
report does say that inmates have “major consternation” with Dr. Zaloga and
says the fact “that the person best positioned to provide inmates with care
was the one they most disrespected was telling.” In the report — dated Jan.
29 — Pax Christi recommended that the Prison Board hire an independent party
to evaluate the prison’s medical services. The purpose of the study is not
conflict, but change, said Mrs. Holmes. The idea for a review was triggered
by the birth of a baby in a prison cell on July 10, Father Pickard said.
Then-inmate Shakira Staten, 22, of Chambersburg, accused Lackawanna County
Prison officials of ignoring her repeated pleas to go to the hospital before
her daughter dropped from her womb and to the floor of a cell monitored by a
closed-circuit television camera. Although the Prison Board initially denied
the staff did anything wrong in that incident, county officials later
publicly apologized to Ms. Staten for what happened. According to the report,
Ms. Donate denied Pax Christi access to current inmates. Father Pickard and
Mrs. Holmes conducted interviews during regular visits with prisoners as part
of the prison ministry program. Joseph Rogan, Ed.D.,
heads the regional chapter of Pax Christi. Other members of the prison health
care review team included Sister Barbara Craig of the Sisters of Mercy and
Ann Marie Crowley. Inmates give examples -- The report details many
complaints registered by the interviewed inmates. Among them were the claims
of two women who were pregnant while incarcerated. The report says the
pregnant inmates received no checkups after entering the prison, and
“received inconsistent prenatal vitamins and received no prenatal care.”
Another inmate reportedly claimed that “medicines are routinely replaced or
unavailable to save the (medical care) firm money.” Several complaints were
reported about a lack of response to inmate requests to see a doctor or to
file grievances about medical care denials. “A few did get the care they
requested ... ,” the report says. “Most, however,
reported that their requests were ignored, or, if addressed at all, only very
slowly. When they did get attention, in many cases no treatments were
prescribed. One (inmate) was told that he was just getting old.” The report
said two interviewed inmates independently confirmed that when one inmate
they knew filed a grievance about medical care, the “entire unit was locked
down while a guard read the details of the inmate’s complete medical history
over the intercom for all to hear.” None of the interview subjects is
identified in the report, and it contains a disclaimer that says some
responses “may have been colored by personal motives.” However, the document
also says that there were underlying themes amid the responses that triggered
the recommendations. “We thought there was enough of a common thread there to
release the report,” Father Pickard said. “I could tell by (the inmates’)
emotions that they were sincere, that they went through a terrible ordeal.
They weren’t play-acting. It was very obvious in the interaction I had with
them.” Prisoners faced possible retribution by answering the survey
questions, Father Pickard said. The committee recorded a majority of the
inmates’ names, and Father Pickard said the committee verified what inmates
told them “as best they could.” However, Mrs. Holmes admitted they did not
have a way to verify all claims. Pax Christi received 38 responses when input
was solicited, but was only able to interview 16 people because of time and
logistical constraints. Of the 16 people who responded, 14 were current
inmates. The report recommends that the Prison Board: Review the prison’s
inmate intake procedures. Review the prison’s medical response procedures.
Review the possibility that inmates with mental health issues could be better
placed. Review whether inmates who have substance-abuse problems could be
served through treatment and education. Review the prison’s policies and
procedures related to pregnant inmates. Review the prison’s food-service
system to determine whether inmates receive proper nutrition. Officials not talking -- County communications director
Lynne Shedlock said the study was referred to Prison Warden Janine Donate,
who was not immediately available for comment. “There is no further comment
until the warden has had a chance to review it,” Ms. Shedlock said. “She’ll
present a report back to the Prison Board at the appropriate time.” Majority
Commissioner Mike Washo, who chairs the board, was out of town and not
available for comment. Minority Commissioner A.J. Munchak, who served as
Prison Board chair when he was majority commissioner through last year,
deferred questions to Mr. Washo. “Any official response has to come from the
chairman,” Mr. Munchak said. Commissioner Corey O’Brien, also a member of the
Prison Board, declined comment as well. In addition to the three county
commissioners, the Prison Board includes District Attorney Andy Jarbola,
Sheriff John Szymanski , Judge Vito Geroulo and
County Controller Ken McDowell. Mr. McDowell said he read the study and
anticipates the warden will review it and make a report to the Prison Board.
Efforts to reach Mr. Jarbola, Mr. Szymanski and Judge Geroulo were
unsuccessful.

August
18, 2007 Times-Tribune
The Lackawanna County Prison’s medical director was fired from a similar post
at a Pittsburgh-based health care services company in 1999 in an apparent
dispute over a new treatment for hepatitis C in state prisons the company
served. Company officials could not be reached to explain his termination,
but in a lawsuit later filed against the company, Dr. Edward J. Zaloga
claimed he was fired because he disagreed with a plan to begin treating the
liver disease with a then-new, unproven drug that ultimately would be a waste
of taxpayer money. The treatment “would waste more than $7 million of the
(state) taxpayers’ money on unnecessary and unwarranted medical treatment,”
he charged in a suit filed against Wexford Health Sources Inc. in November
1999. He claimed in his suit that his management practices had created a
profit for the company of $4.1 million, and the company — which at the time
was trying to get the state to pay for the new treatment — feared it might
have to pay for treating inmates if the state found out about its profits. He
was fired for raising the concerns, he alleged. The suit demanded more than
$1 million in unpaid wages, expenses, lawyer’s fees and punitive damages. The
company, in its legal responses, denied earning anywhere near $4 million. It
denied his other claims as well. County judges rejected Dr. Zaloga’s suit in
separate rulings in 2002 and 2004 with one judge writing that Dr. Zaloga
failed to establish “a report of wrongdoing ... or waste.” Wexford in its
legal filings acknowledged firing Dr. Zaloga but did not say why. Dr. Zaloga
is now co-owner of a company, Correctional Care Inc., of Moosic, that
provides medical services to county prison inmates, and oversees those
services. A former inmate, Shakira Staten, 22, a federal prisoner who gave
birth at the prison July 10 and has since been transferred to Adams County
Prison to await sentencing, has sued him, the company and the prison in
federal court. She claims she was a victim of cruel and unusual punishment
because her pleas to be taken to the hospital when she went into labor were
ignored and she had the baby alone in a cell. The county Prison Board this
week apologized for the way she treated and blamed a Correctional Care nurse
for “serious errors of judgment” that included failing to properly monitor
her labor and unnecessarily delaying taking her to the hospital. The board
barred the nurse from working in the prison. A secretary in the company’s
office said Dr. Zaloga was not available for comment and would only reply to
written questions. A secretary at Wexford Health Sources said no company
officials would be available to comment until next week. Dr. Zaloga was
Wexford’s regional medical director for its central Pennsylvania operations
from Feb. 1 to Sept. 29, 1999, the day the company’s operations director
dismissed him, according to court records.

November
24, 2004 Scranton Times Tribune
PrimeCare Medical Inc., the Harrisburg company that lost out last month on a
lucrative contract for medical care at the Lackawanna County Prison, hit the
county with a $926,000 lawsuit Tuesday.PrimeCare President Carl A. Hoffman claims county officials, namely
Commissioner Robert C. Cordaro, breached an oral agreement with him when they
hired another company to take over prison medical services. Earlier this
year, PrimeCare said it would forgive about $400,000 in outstanding bills in
exchange for a new five-year contract, according to the lawsuit. The county paid PrimeCare $900,000 instead of the $1.3
million owed and later awarded the health care contract to a local upstart
company, Correctional Care Inc.

October
15, 2004 Scranton Times Tribune
Divided on the issue days ago, Lackawanna County Commissioners voted
unanimously Thursday to award a multimillion-dollar prison health-care
contract to a new, local provider instead of the veteran incumbent company.
Correctional Care Inc., of Moosic, was founded four months ago by Dr. Edward
Zaloga and investors Joseph Compagnino, William Drazdowski and Ronald Halko
for the sole purpose of taking over medical operations at the county jail.
The upstart company beat out PrimeCare Medical
services
of Harrisburg for the five-year service contract.Having no
experience to draw on, the company was unable to estimate its annual cost,
Commissioner A.J. Munchak said. PrimeCare has been the prison's health-care
provider since 2001. It has been working without a contract since January and
proposed a $5.4 million five-year contract. The question of the contract had
been hotly contested since May, when PrimeCare officials answered the Prison
Board about concerns raised in a county grand jury report. In it, jurors
cited "failure to adequately treat inmates for serious medical
conditions" and "failure of medical staff to report, document or
question suspicious injuries."

Years after he took money to send
them to privately run juvenile detention centers, a former Luzerne County
Court judge must now pay former detainees back for violating their civil
rights, a federal judge in Wilkes-Barre has ruled. In an opinion released
Thursday, U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo cleared the way for about
2,500 plaintiffs to collect damages from Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., one of two
former judges convicted in the "kids for cash" corruption scandal.
How much Ciavarella will owe will be determined later, Caputo said.
Ciavarella was sentenced in 2011 to 28 years in prison for accepting hundreds
of thousands of dollars in bribes from the builder and co-owner of two
Northeastern Pennsylvania private prisons. In exchange, he backed county
contracts with the facilities and increased their inmate counts by imposing
harsh sentences on children, some as young as 10, who came before his court.
The state Supreme Court threw out thousands of his convictions, saying the
justices had no confidence they were decided fairly, given Ciavarella's
criminal conduct. Since then, several of the former detainees have sued him
and other members of the conspiracy. In his ruling Thursday, Caputo ruled
that judges "no matter how corrupt" are protected by judicial
immunity for all decisions made from the bench. But actions Ciavarella took
outside court, including closing the county's government-run detention center
and instituting a zero-tolerance policy believed to have sent hundreds of
teens to lockup for alleged parole violations, left him open to the suits, he
decided. Ciavarella, who remains in a federal prison in Illinois, did not
dispute that argument before Caputo's ruling. His attorneys did not return
calls for comment Friday. "We're happy to see that there's some further
closure and that Judge Caputo has found Judge Ciavarella liable for his
actions," said David S. Senoff, a Philadelphia lawyer representing several
of the juvenile plaintiffs. Suits against other members of the "kids for
cash" conspiracy have largely favored the plaintiffs. The two private
detention centers at the center of the scandal, PA Child Care and Western PA
Child Care, recently agreed to settle for $2.5 million. In 2011, Robert K.
Mericle, their builder, offered to pay $17.75 million to settle claims
against him. A federal court has also found Michael T. Conahan, another
Luzerne County judge serving more than 17 years in prison for his role in the
scandal, liable for yet-to-be-determined damages. Senoff said Friday his
clients would continue to pursue civil claims against Robert Powell, the
former co-owner of the detention facilities.

August 6, 2013 neontommy.com

A Pennsylvania judge convicted of
accepting bribes from owners of private juvenile detention facilities in
exchange for keeping the facility well-populated has lost an appeal. Judge
Mark A. Ciavarella is set to begin serving his 28-year sentence. Following a
federal investigation, Ciavarella and fellow "Kids for Cash" Judge
Michael Conahan were found to have received $2.6 million from the owners of
two facilities, run by PA Child Care and sister company Western PA Child
Care. Ciavarella's efforts to ensure that the juvenile facilities remained full
included sentencing Hillary Transue, then a high school sophomore, to three
months in jail for making fun of her school's principal online. Other
instances include a seventh-grader jailed for 48 days for throwing a piece of
steak at his mother's boyfriend and an 11-year-old boy sentenced for calling
the police after being locked out of the house by his mother. According to
BoingBoing: The judges helped the detention centers land a county contract
worth $58 million. Then their alleged scheme was to guarantee the operators a
steady income by detaining juveniles, often on petty stuff...[The
Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia, PA] cited hundreds of examples where
teens accused of minor mischief were pressured to waive their right to
lawyers, and then shipped to a detention center. The Pennsylvania Supreme
Court threw out hundreds of convictions issued by the two judges after their
scheme came to light.

August 6, 2013 neontommy.com

A Pennsylvania judge convicted of
accepting bribes from owners of private juvenile detention facilities in
exchange for keeping the facility well-populated has lost an appeal. Judge
Mark A. Ciavarella is set to begin serving his 28-year sentence. Following a
federal investigation, Ciavarella and fellow "Kids for Cash" Judge
Michael Conahan were found to have received $2.6 million from the owners of
two facilities, run by PA Child Care and sister company Western PA Child
Care. Ciavarella's efforts to ensure that the juvenile facilities remained
full included sentencing Hillary Transue, then a high school sophomore, to
three months in jail for making fun of her school's principal online. Other
instances include a seventh-grader jailed for 48 days for throwing a piece of
steak at his mother's boyfriend and an 11-year-old boy sentenced for calling
the police after being locked out of the house by his mother. According to
BoingBoing: The judges helped the detention centers land a county contract
worth $58 million. Then their alleged scheme was to guarantee the operators a
steady income by detaining juveniles, often on petty stuff...[The
Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia, PA] cited hundreds of examples where
teens accused of minor mischief were pressured to waive their right to
lawyers, and then shipped to a detention center. The Pennsylvania Supreme
Court threw out hundreds of convictions issued by the two judges after their
scheme came to light.

November
4, 2011 Washington Post
The former owner of two for-profit juvenile detention facilities was
sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison for his role in a kickback scheme
that led the state Supreme Court to vacate the convictions of thousands of
juveniles who appeared before a now-jailed Pennsylvania judge. Robert Powell
pleaded guilty in 2009 to concealing a felony and an accessory charge in the
so-called “kids for cash” scandal. Powell, 52, testified earlier this year
that he was forced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to former Luzerne
County Judges Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan in return for their
support of his two private juvenile detention centers. He said the judges
extorted more than $725,000 from him after they shut down the dilapidated
county-run detention center and instead sent juveniles to his new lockup
outside the city of Wilkes-Barre and to a sister facility in western
Pennsylvania.

August
11, 2011 APA longtime northeastern Pennsylvania judge has been ordered to spend
nearly three decades in prison for his role in a massive juvenile justice bribery
scandal that prompted the state's high court to toss thousands of
convictions. Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced
Thursday to 28 years in federal prison for taking $1 million in bribes from
the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became
known as "kids-for-cash." The Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed
about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he
violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to
legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea. Ciavarella, 61,
was tried and convicted of racketeering charges earlier this year. His
attorneys had asked for a "reasonable" sentence in court papers,
saying, in effect, that he's already been punished enough. "The media
attention to this matter has exceeded coverage given to many and almost all
capital murders, and despite protestation, he will forever be unjustly
branded as the 'Kids for Cash' judge," their sentencing memo said. Federal
prosecutors accused Ciavarella and a second judge, Michael Conahan, of taking
more than $2 million in bribes from the builder of the PA Child Care and
Western PA Child Care detention centers and extorting hundreds of thousands
of dollars from the facilities' co-owner. Ciavarella, known for his harsh and
autocratic courtroom demeanor, filled the beds of the private lockups with
children as young as 10, many of them first-time offenders convicted of petty
theft and other minor crimes. The judge remained defiant after his arrest,
insisting the payments were legal and denying he incarcerated youths for
money. The jury returned a mixed verdict following a February trial,
convicting him of 12 counts, including racketeering and conspiracy, and
acquitting him of 27 counts, including extortion. The guilty verdicts related
to a payment of $997,600 from the builder. Conahan, meanwhile, pleaded guilty
last year and awaits sentencing.

February
19, 2011 AP
A former Juvenile Court judge was convicted Friday of racketeering in a case
that accused him of sending young offenders to for-profit detention centers
in exchange for millions of dollars in illicit payments from the builder and
owner of the lockups. Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, 61, left the
bench in disgrace two years ago after prosecutors charged him with
engineering one of the biggest courtroom frauds in U.S. history by using
juvenile delinquents as pawns in a plot to get rich. Federal prosecutors
accused Ciavarella and a second judge, Michael Conahan, of taking more than
$2 million in bribes from the builder of the PA Child Care and Western PA
Child Care detention centers and extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars
from the facilities' co-owner. Ciavarella insisted that the payments were
legal and denied that he incarcerated youths for money. A federal jury in
Scranton returned a mixed verdict, convicting Ciavarella of 12 counts,
including racketeering and conspiracy, and acquitting him of 27 counts,
including extortion. The guilty verdicts related to nearly $1 million that
the builder paid to the judges.

February
15, 2011 AP
A former northeastern Pennsylvania judge admitted Tuesday that he was deep in
debt and living beyond his means when he accepted hundreds of thousands of
dollars from the builder of two privately owned juvenile detention centers,
but he insisted the payments were legal "finder's fees" and not
bribes as the federal government has alleged. Ex-Luzerne County Judge Mark
Ciavarella took the witness stand at his federal racketeering trial and tried
to stem the damage from a week of testimony that he took more than $2 million
in illegal kickbacks from the builder of the juvenile lockups and extorted
hundreds of thousands of dollars from the facilities' co-owner — a scandal
known as "kids for cash" that resulted in the dismissal of
thousands of juvenile convictions. At times, he seemed like a witness for the
prosecution. Ciavarella, 61, admitted that he filed false tax returns related
to the payments. He also admitted that he plotted with former Judge Michael
Conahan to defraud the federal government of the taxes they owed — and that
he took steps to conceal the payments because he knew they would look bad to
the public. "I made the wrong decision and I paid dearly for that,"
Ciavarella told jurors at the federal courthouse in Scranton. "And
that's OK because I have to suffer the consequences of my decision."
Prosecutors allege the judges shut down the decrepit county-run juvenile
detention center in 2002 and arranged for the construction of the PA Child Care
facility outside Wilkes-Barre. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court,
stocked the private jail with young offenders whose crimes were often minor.
Many of the teens had never been in trouble before, and some were locked up
even after probation officers recommended against it. Ciavarella, who has
denied any link between the payments he received and the youths he sent to
the facility, said he viewed the money as legitimate. He said the builder,
Robert Mericle, offered to pay him a "finder's fee" because
Ciavarella had introduced him to Robert Powell, the developer and co-owner of
PA Child Care. He said he took Mericle at his word that the payment was
legal. Ciavarella said he thanked Mericle and considered the payment
"manna from heaven." That's because he needed the money. Assistant
U.S. Attorney William Houser used cross examination to portray Ciavarella as
a man swimming in debt and looking for a way out. When Ciavarella received a
$330,000 payment from Mericle in late January 2003 — the first of what would
be three hefty payments from the builder related to the construction and
expansion of PA Child Care and a sister facility in the western part of the
state — the judge immediately sent two dozen checks to creditors, primarily
credit card companies. Ciavarella also repaid a $150,000 loan from Barbara
Conahan, Judge Conahan's wife. In all, he eliminated $311,000 in debt from
the proceeds of the money he got from Mericle. "We were living beyond
our means," he acknowledged. Houser said the debt showed Ciavarella had
a clear "motive for the crime." The former judge testified clearly
and confidently as he responded to questions from his own attorneys Tuesday
morning, rejecting the government's allegations that he took bribes from
Mericle and extorted money from Powell, a high-powered attorney. He said
Powell couldn't be touched. "You didn't demand anything from Bobby
Powell," Ciavarella said. "He had an ego bigger than this room. . There was absolutely nothing I could do to hurt Mr.
Powell financially." Powell has said that he was forced to pay $590,000
to a company controlled by the judges and another $143,000 in cash to
Conahan. The judges allegedly disguised the payments as rental income from a
Florida condo owned by their wives. Powell testified that Conahan and
Ciavarella pressured him to make payments, going so far as to request more
money even as a federal investigation was under way. Ciavarella called
Powell's testimony "ludicrous and ridiculous." He insisted Powell's
payments were rent, and had nothing to do with the juvenile detention
centers. He said Conahan told him that Powell had agreed to pay $15,000 a
month for 60 months for use of the condo — a total of nearly $1 million. He
testified that Conahan made those arrangements, not him. Houser was
incredulous. He asked Ciavarella why Powell — a wealthy, successful
businessman and personal injury lawyer — would agree to pay nearly $1 million
in rent on a condo that the judges' wives had purchased for only $785,000,
and for which Powell would receive no ownership interest. "That's what
Powell wanted," Ciavarella insisted. He said Powell didn't want to own
the condo because his wife would then have a claim on it — a reference to
earlier testimony by a defense witness that Powell was having an affair and
planned to get a divorce. Powell's attorney has denied the allegation. Houser
also pointed out the Pennsylvania Constitution forbids judges from accepting
payment of any kind, other than salary, "for the performance of any
judicial duty." Ciavarella responded that he wasn't acting in his
official capacity as judge when he put Mericle in touch with Powell, but as
an elected official trying to do right by the county's troubled youth. But he
said he knew how the enormous sums he got from Mericle and Powell would be
perceived. "I didn't want the publicity and I didn't want the scrutiny.
That's what I was trying to avoid," he said. "I did the wrong
thing." Houser was merciless, grilling Ciavarella for more than three
hours and getting one damaging admission after another. Almost as an aside,
Ciavarella acknowledged that he pocketed $15,000 to $20,000 in cash from a
golf tournament fundraiser held in 2005 as part of his judicial retention
campaign. He said he kept the cash in the house, used it for personal expenses
such as dinners out, and failed to list it on his campaign finance report.
The defense expects to rest its case Wednesday. Closing arguments will
follow. Conahan, the other judge, has pleaded guilty to racketeering
conspiracy and awaits sentencing.

February
9, 2011 CNBC
The builder of two private juvenile detention facilities said Wednesday that
he paid $2.1 million to a judge in northeastern Pennsylvania who steered him
the work, but he viewed the payments as "finder's fees," which are
standard practice in the commercial real estate business. Robert Mericle
testified at the trial of former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, who
sent juvenile offenders to a detention center that Mericle built outside of
the city of Wilkes-Barre. Federal prosecutors allege that Ciavarella took
illegal kickbacks from Mericle and extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars
from the facility's developer. Mericle told jurors that he visited Ciavarella
in his courthouse office and said he wouldn't have had the opportunity to build
PA Child Care without the judge, who had referred him to developer Robert
Powell. Mericle, the owner of a commercial construction company with more
than 200 employees, said it's standard industry
practice to pay referral fees to individuals who put deals together. He said
he paid a $1 million referral fee for PA Child Care. "If anybody
deserves it, it's you," Mericle told Ciavarella. "I agree,"
Ciavarella said, according to Mericle's account. Mericle said he paid another
$1 million referral fee after building a second detention center for Powell,
this one in Butler County, in the western part of the state. Under
cross-examination, Mericle said he did not consider the money he paid to
Ciavarella to be a kickback or bribe. Prosecutors allege that Ciavarella and
another judge, Michael Conahan, orchestrated a scheme to shut down the
dilapidated county-run detention center and arrange for the construction of
the PA Child Care lockup in Luzerne County. Ciavarella, who presided over
juvenile court, is accused of stocking the private jail with young offenders
whose crimes were often minor. The state Supreme Court threw out thousands of
juvenile convictions issued by Ciavarella, saying he disregarded the
constitutional rights of the defendants. By the fall of 2007, Ciavarella was
aware that federal law enforcement authorities were looking into the
payments. But even then he questioned Mericle about the status of the latest
referral fee he was to supposed to receive — $150,000 for a 24-bed expansion
of Western PA Child Care. Mericle testified that he went to see Ciavarella in
his chambers one day. He said he found Ciavarella behind his desk with the
lights dimmed. Ciavarella put his fingers to his lips to hush him, presumably
believing his office to be bugged, and wrote a message on a slip of paper.
"Wired? Yes No Circle One," the note said, meaning he wanted to
know whether the finder's fee had been deposited into his bank account.
Mericle circled no. Ciavarella then motioned for Mericle to go into a courtroom,
where the pair sat at a table and Ciavarella told him that a grand jury was
investigating. He told Mericle that he could go to jail if authorities found
out that he had directed the referral fees to be funneled to him through
Powell. Mericle testified that he believed Ciavarella wanted him to alter
documents to make it look as if the payments had been made directly to the
judge — not to Powell — in order to give the appearance of legitimacy.
"Rob, I'm not asking you to lie or perjure yourself," Ciavarella
said, according to Mericle. "I'm asking you to go back to your office
and look at those records and recognize I could go to jail." A few days
later, Mericle was about to leave his office to return to Ciavarella's
chambers when the builder was visited by IRS and FBI agents. Mericle
initially lied to law enforcement officials and to a grand jury. He has
pleaded guilty to concealing evidence that Ciavarella committed tax fraud,
and faces up to three years in prison when he is sentenced. Mericle said he
initially lied to protect his friend. Ciavarella was Mericle's attorney until
1996, when he became a judge, and Mericle said he viewed Ciavarella as an
older brother. As Mericle's construction company grew and prospered, he
lavished gifts on the judge. He said he gave $5,000 cash to Ciavarella each
Christmas. "I did not want to be the person to lay Mark out," he
said.

February
8, 2011 AP
A northeastern Pennsylvania judge accepted kickbacks and extorted money in a
$2.8 million scheme to turn the courthouse into a "cash cow" by
locking up juvenile offenders in privately run detention facilities, a
federal prosecutor said Tuesday as the former judge's trial began. Lawyers
delivered opening statements in the case of one-time Luzerne County Judge
Mark Ciavarella, who has denied authorities' allegations of a racketeering
plot. His attorney on Tuesday called the government's case
"ludicrous" and said that while Ciavarella may have exercised poor
judgment, he did not break the law. In a courtroom scandal known as "kids
for cash," the government has charged Ciavarella and another judge,
Michael Conahan, with orchestrating a scheme to shut down the county-run
detention center and arrange for a private facility to be built and run by
cronies. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, is accused of stocking
the private jail with young offenders whose crimes were often minor.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Zubrod told jurors that Ciavarella accepted
hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from Robert Mericle, a locally
prominent construction company owner and the builder of the PA Child Care
detention center outside Wilkes-Barre. Ciavarella also extorted cash from the
center's co-owner, Robert Powell, and threatened to send juvenile delinquents
elsewhere if he didn't get the money, Zubrod said. The judges are accused of
laundering the money through a series of shell companies, disguising some of
the illicit cash as rental payments on a Florida condominium owned by their
wives. Ciavarella "used his judicial office to enrich himself in direct
violation of his duty and oath as judge," Zubrod said, turning "the
high office of judge into a cash cow, a money-making machine." He said
Powell knew he was being extorted, but he felt he had no choice but to pay
because the detention center carried a $12 million mortgage and he needed
Luzerne County to house its juvenile offenders there. The judges "had
him over a barrel," he said.

February
6, 2011 Standard Speaker
The words poured out of Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. like sweat on that warm afternoon
two Julys ago - fragments of truth and excuses interspersed with the
arrogance and defiance that defined his time as a judge on the Luzerne County
Court of Common Pleas. Ciavarella, subpoenaed to testify about alleged
impropriety in a civil case on his docket, had turned his cross-examination
into an exercise of catharsis and confession. The former judge, eschewing
brevity and practicality, transformed each answer into a point-by-point
rebuttal to the charges that ended his career and irrevocably tarnished his
reputation. "I did not consider what I did to be illegal,"
Ciavarella said, matching his recollections and equivocations against the
six-month-old allegations that he and a colleague accepted $2.8 million in
illegal payments to support the development of a pair of for-profit detention
centers. Ciavarella's testimony, a tapestry of extraordinary admissions and
denials, came three weeks before U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik rejected
the plea agreement that would have guaranteed him 7½ years in prison. At the
time, Ciavarella had nothing to lose. His words, transmitted in bold, brash
strokes as his attorneys sat in stunned silence, were little more than an
attempt at saving face and rationalizing away the sins that led to his
undoing. Now, with Ciavarella set to stand trial Monday on a 39-count
indictment stemming from the same allegations of kickbacks and collusion,
those long-ago words have new significance. They offer a glimpse at
Ciavarella's possible defense strategy - a Herculean task for a man who, in
the same line of questioning, admitted being a "corrupt judge" and
confessed that he never paid taxes on any of the payments he received. And,
they bolster a prosecution case that hinges on allegations Ciavarella and his
colleague, Michael T. Conahan, conspired with the backers of the for-profit
facilities to secure a lucrative county contract, and that Ciavarella used
his power as the juvenile court judge to keep the beds at those facilities
filled. A private facility -- Until the first of the for-profit juvenile
facilities opened in 2003, wayward Luzerne County youths often wound up at
the county-owned detention center - a six-decade-old former women's prison on
North River Street in Wilkes-Barre. Ciavarella, the juvenile court judge from
1996 to 2008, detested the facility, publicly criticizing its infrastructure
and cleanliness while privately soliciting proposals from private developers
to build a replacement. "The place is old," Ciavarella decried in
April 2000. "It suffers from leaky pipes that we can't get to because
they're buried behind 2-foot-thick concrete walls and the interior is
infested with cockroaches and rodents." Ciavarella turned to the private
sector after his original plan - to have the county build a replacement
facility - became mired in election-year politics. "I went to the county
commissioners and I asked them to build a new detention center,"
Ciavarella said during his cross-examination two summers ago. "They told
me they would, but they didn't want to build it and announce it until after
the election." The election passed, but the commissioners still had not
taken action on building a new juvenile detention center. One commissioner,
citing a study that showed the cost of a new facility between $4 million and
$5 million, said he favored building a replacement or contracting with a
private developer. Commissioner Stephen A. Urban opposed closing the
county-owned center and, later, the immense costs associated with leasing the
for-profit center, Pennsylvania Child Care in Pittston Township. Urban,
testifying last year before a state panel probing Ciavarella and Conahan,
said repairs and improvements to the county-owned facility could have been
completed for $2 million to $4 million. Ciavarella, disgusted and impatient,
turned to Conahan, his friend and one-time neighbor. "I said, 'If you
know anybody that has the wherewithal to build a facility, tell them to build
one because this place is a dump and it shouldn't be open,'" Ciavarella
testified. 'The boss' got it done -- Conahan, known in courthouse circles as
"the boss," had the power, influence and connections to make the
privatization of the county's juvenile detention a reality. "He was the
one that made it all possible," Ciavarella said during his cross-examination
two years ago. "He put the people in the room that came up with the
financing to build the facility." Conahan, the county's president judge
from 2002 to 2007, brought in business partners Robert J. Powell and Gregory
Zappala to finance the project and used his power to compel the county
commissioners into contracting with their facility - at a cost far higher
than the projected price of a new county-owned juvenile jail. By the fall of
his first year heading the courts, Conahan made the unilateral decision to
stop sending juveniles to the county-owned detention facility and sent the
facility's operating license back to the state Department of Public Welfare,
even though it had been granted to the Luzerne County government, not the
courts. Urban, the longtime minority commissioner and frequent critic of the
insular ways of county government, saw Conahan's maneuvering as a thinly
veiled effort to ensure a stream of county business for the for-profit
facility - a sleight of hand Urban's colleagues did not seem to notice or
mind. "The judge said, 'we're not sending anybody there,'" Urban
recalled. "The other two commissioners then voted for a budget that
defunded positions of the child-care workers (at the county-owned facility).
And then they closed the facility, and the county was then forced to use the
detention center that Mr. Powell and Zappala had built at the cost of about
$100 extra per day, per bed than it was costing us in our own facility."
The county paid $9 million to lodge juveniles at the for-profit facility, Pennsylvania
Child Care, in the two years between the closing of the county-owned facility
and the approval of a 20-year, $58 million lease. Urban, who voted against
the lease agreement, and the county controller at the time, Stephen L. Flood,
objected to the high cost and nature of the agreement. There were no bids and
no negotiations. At first, concerned -- Early in his campaign for a new
detention facility, Ciavarella cast himself as something of an altruist in a
judge's robe - an empathetic father figure intent on giving mischievous
youths housing with better amenities, mental health services, infrastructure
and cleanliness than the county's cavernous dungeon of a juvenile jail. As
Ciavarella became more involved with the process any notion of altruism drowned
in a stream of cash from Powell, a Drums attorney who argued civil cases
before Ciavarella, and Robert K. Mericle, a prominent developer whose firm
built for-profit facilities for Powell and Zappala in Pittston Township and
Butler County. Mericle met Ciavarella in his chambers in April 2002 and
offered a "finder's fee" - 10 percent of the total cost of the
contract for constructing the facilities. Ciavarella, recalling the
conversation during his cross-examination, said he decided almost immediately
to share the payment with Conahan. "I walked over to his chambers and
told him what had transpired in my chambers," Ciavarella said.
"(Conahan) said to me 'that is one hell of a friend you have.' That was
the end of it." Mericle funneled the "finder's fee" - about
$440,000 each according to Ciavarella - through a matrix of transactions,
first from his company to Robert Matta, the former president of Miners Bank,
then to Beverage Marketing, a company owned by Conahan, then to the judges.
Powell rewarded Ciavarella and Conahan with more than $772,500, including
$520,000 disguised as rent payments on a condominium the former judges owned
in Jupiter, Fla., and $182,500 in cash stuffed in FedEx boxes and
hand-delivered, via an emissary, to the judges. Ciavarella said he paid taxes
on the Powell money, but thought Conahan would cover the taxes on the Mericle
payments. He did not declare either set of payments on his annual state
financial disclosure form. "I did not consider the money that I was
receiving to be illegal mob money," Ciavarella said during his
cross-examination two summers ago. "I was told it was legal money. I was
told it was something that I was entitled to. And for that reason, I did not
have a problem with where that money went or how it came to me." Tricky
tactics -- Ciavarella's tactics in the juvenile courtroom were admittedly
illegal. The former judge, known since childhood as "Scooch," used
a celebrated "zero tolerance" approach to juvenile crime along with
unconstitutional tricks - including habitually failing to inform defendants
of their right to an attorney and jailing them for the most minor offenses -
to keep the private jails full and profitable. He balked when state officials
confronted him about the county's unusually high juvenile detention rates.
"He wasn't pleased at all with being questioned," Richard J. Gold,
the deputy secretary of the state Office of Children, Youth and Families,
said. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court from 1996 to 2008 and
served as president judge from 2007 until his resignation from the bench in
January 2009, had been sending juveniles to detention at a rate more than
twice the state average and the county was exceeding state reimbursement
limits by $2 million per year. "Any way you looked at it, their numbers
were out of sync," Gold said. Ciavarella sat silent, harboring the true
reason for the outsized numbers and costs, as one of the other officials in
the room answered, "We're working on it." Pennsylvania Child Care
sued two Department of Public Welfare auditors and Flood, the former county
controller, in December 2004, after Flood released documents to the media
from an unfinished state audit that called the lease a "bad deal."
The audit found that Pennsylvania Child Care had turned a 28 percent profit
in the first year of the lease, Gold said. The county, he said, could have
built three juvenile detention centers for the cost of what it paid to lease
the for-profit center. Ciavarella, a defendant in a series of civil lawsuits
filed by the juveniles who appeared in his court, defended his courtroom
behavior in a March 2009 interview on the ABC News program "20/20."
Ciavarella, accosted by reporter Jim Avila and a camera crew outside his
Kingston condominium, objected to the notion he had "sold kids down the
river." "You take a look at their file and you look to see if this
was the first time they had a run-in with the law," Ciavarella told
Avila. "It might have been the first time they're in front of me. You
may be surprised that it's not going to be as clear-cut as they would like
you to think."

May
27, 2010 Billings Gazette
A state panel investigating the "kids for cash" scandal in
northeastern Pennsylvania called Thursday for improved oversight of judges
among dozens of other recommendations meant to strengthen the state's
juvenile justice system. The Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice was
created last August by the Legislature and Gov. Ed Rendell to look into the
causes of the judicial scandal at the Luzerne County Courthouse and to
suggest ways to prevent a recurrence there or elsewhere. Former judges
Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella are charged in federal court with
racketeering for allegedly taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to place
youth offenders in for-profit detention centers. Conahan has agreed to plead
guilty for his role in the $2.8 million scheme. Ciavarella awaits trial. The
state Supreme Court tossed thousands of juvenile convictions after federal
prosecutors charged the judges last year. In its report, the interbranch commission
said that corruption in the Luzerne County courthouse "has been deeply
ingrained for many years" and that "many individuals may be seen to
have shared the responsibility" for failures in the juvenile justice
system there, including prosecutors, public defenders and probation
officials. The commission's work also revealed failures in state oversight of
the court system. Its recommendations cover a range of issues, from improving
the state Judicial Conduct Board _ the agency that investigates and prosecutes
misconduct by Pennsylvania judges _ to ensuring that juveniles have access to
legal representation, to reducing or eliminating the use of shackling in
juvenile courtrooms. The commission voted Thursday to approve the report and
recommendations and send them to Rendell, Chief Justice Ronald Castille and
legislative leaders.

January
25, 2010 AP
A northeastern Pennsylvania prosecutor has dropped her effort to retry as
many as 46 youths who appeared before a judge charged in a corruption
scandal, bringing an end to a legal saga that involved an estimated 5,000
tainted juvenile convictions. The agreement between defense lawyers and
Luzerne County District Attorney Jackie Musto Carroll means that none of the
thousands of youths who appeared before disgraced former Judge Mark
Ciavarella Jr. between 2003 and 2008 will face retrial, and all will have
their juvenile records wiped clean. "It's in the interest of fairness
and justice that these cases be reversed, too," Carroll said in court
Monday, exactly one year after Ciavarella and another judge were charged with
accepting millions in kickbacks to place juvenile offenders in for-profit
detention centers. Anthony Brennan, who spent more than a year in detention
after being caught breaking into an abandoned building
when he was 15, said he was gratified by the decision. "It's a sense of
relief," said Brennan, now 18, of Hazleton. "I can get on with my
life now." The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has said that Ciavarella ran a
kangaroo court in which he systemically denied youths their constitutional
rights, including the right to counsel and the right to intelligently enter a
plea. After being found delinquent, the youths were often shackled and taken
to private jails whose owner was allegedly paying bribes to the judge.
Federal prosecutors have said that Ciavarella and another former Luzerne
County judge, Michael Conahan, took a total of $2.8 million in payoffs.

December
8, 2009 Philadelphia InquirerA special panel investigating judicial corruption in Luzerne County heard
a woman testify last night that her 14-year-old daughter was sent to jail by
former Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. despite her warnings that the girl was
epileptic and subject to seizures under stress. "Two days later, I got a
call at 5 in the morning telling me that she had had a seizure," she
said. "I almost lost her." Mother and daughter sat side by side in
witness chairs before the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice, which
is conducting hearings into judicial corruption here. For at least five
years, young defendants routinely appeared in Ciavarella's courtroom without
lawyers for hearings that lasted just a few minutes. After being found
delinquent, the youths were taken to private jails, often in shackles.
Federal prosecutors charge that the owner of two of the jails paid some $2.8
million in bribes to Ciavarella and former Judge Michael T. Conahan. The
mother said her daughter was released from the detention center, placed under
house arrest, and not allowed to go to school despite being an A student.
After being allowed to resume her schooling, she said, her daughter was very
introverted. "I had to force her to go to her prom. It's taken a lot of
years for her to come out of her shell, and I blame Ciavarella for
that." The girl was accused of defacing public property with a felt pen,
using phrases such as "Vote for Michael Jackson." Her daughter
testified that during her hearing, Ciavarella and the policeman who arrested
her spent most of the time talking about a previous night's football game.
Asked what she had learned from her experience with the juvenile justice
system, she said: "People in power are not always people we should
trust." Seven children and their parents, most of whom
were in tears for at least part of their testimony, appeared last night. The
commission members appeared shaken and angered by the testimony. A college
student told the commission that when she was 16 years old she was arrested
for "giving a police officer the finger." She said a probation
officer advised her that she didn't need an attorney, but Ciavarella
sentenced her to two months in prison even though she had no record. She was
placed in shackles and taken out of the courtroom to detention. She said she
was a good high school student, involved in numerous extracurricular
activities, and plans to go to law school. A 16-year-old girl who was sent
away for eight months by Ciavarella when she was 13 for fighting with another
girl in school testified that she had emotional scars from the experience
that made her unable to return to school after she completed her sentence.
"I am unable to deal with large groups of people, and I am now being
homeschooled," she said. Judge John Cleland of the state Superior Court,
chairman of the commission, said the juveniles' testimony would "serve
as a reminder to us that court policies and court procedures have real-life
consequences for people. Good and bad." The child defendants were among
about 6,000 young people whose convictions were overturned in October by the Pennsylvania
Supreme Court on grounds they did not get a fair hearing in Ciavarella's
court. Earlier in the day, witnesses painted a picture of a legal
establishment bending to the iron will of Ciavarella. "We trusted the
judge," said Thomas Killino, a former assistant district attorney when
asked why he did not challenge many of Ciavarella's actions, including
illegally obtaining forms from young defendants waiving their right to a
lawyer. Much of the questioning centered on why prosecutors, probation
officers, and public defenders did not challenge Ciavarella's failure to
explain to defendants the consequences of waiving their right to counsel and
of pleading guilty. This process, called a colloquy, is required by state
court rules. "Did it ever bother you that there was no colloquy?"
asked George D. Mosee, head of the juvenile division of the Philadelphia
District Attorney's Office. "It was a fast-paced environment,"
Killino replied. "This was the established practice of the court.
Everyone went along with it." Mosee, who oversees the prosecution of
about 10,000 juveniles a year, added: "I've never prosecuted a child who
didn't have an attorney. How do you handle it?" Killino said he was told
that the defendants had signed written waivers outside the courtroom and that
he believed those overrode the requirement for a colloquy in open court to
determine that the juveniles understood that they had a right to an attorney.
When Killino confirmed estimates that more than half the child defendants who
appeared before Ciavarella did not have attorneys, Judge Dwayne D. Woodruff
asked him if he had ever read the juvenile law that required them to have
counsel. Killino said he had read parts of the law but not the entire law.
Later, Woodruff said he had heard about 4,000 juvenile cases and every
defendant had a lawyer. Judge John C. Uhler asked Killino if there were
instances when defendants without lawyers were sentenced without ever
speaking in their own defense. Killino said there were, and that in those
cases Ciavarella would move right on to sentencing in a matter of minutes.
Later, Uhler said that in his 20 years as a juvenile court judge, no
defendant had ever appeared before him without an attorney. Killino testified
that he and other prosecutors did not have enough information available to
them to determine whether a sentence from Ciavarella was unduly harsh.
"Didn't you want to know?" demanded Jason D. Legg, a commission
member who is a prosecutor from rural Susquehanna County. "It was not
part of our purview," said Killino. Later, Legg said he prosecutes
hundreds of juveniles every year and they always have legal representation.

November
23, 2009 Claims JournalTwo former county judges accused of taking millions of dollars in
kickbacks to send juveniles to private detention facilities are partially
immune from civil lawsuits, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled Friday. The
decision by U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo could make it harder for
the people suing former Luzerne County judges Michael T. Conahan and Mark A. Ciavarella
Jr. to collect damages. Caputo said Ciavarella will avoid civil consequences
for "the vast majority'' of his conduct, because much of it occurred
inside a courtroom, such as determination of delinquency and sentencing. He
said Conahan largely would not be immune, because his alleged actions were
more administrative in nature, such as signing a placement agreement with the
detention centers. The decisions have no bearing on the federal criminal
charges that Ciavarella and Conahan are currently facing in what has become
known as the kids-for-cash scandal. Marsha Levick, a lawyer with the Juvenile
Law Center in Philadelphia, a co-counsel for plaintiffs in the case, said
Friday she did not consider the ruling to be a major setback. There are more
than 400 named plaintiffs in the case, and lawyers are seeking class-action
status. "I think what's important is the judges remained in the
litigation,'' Levick said. "Conahan is
extremely vulnerable because most of what Conahan did with respect to the
plaintiffs' allegations, it was all outside the courtroom.''

November
11, 2009 Philadelphia InquirerTo the frequent frustration and occasional exasperation of a special
panel investigating judicial corruption in Luzerne County, yesterday's
testimony gave off the steady and unmistakable sound of the buck being
passed. Phrases like "I was not aware," "Yes, but," and
"It was not my responsibility" wafted from the witness chair as
officials who oversee the county's courts denied knowing that thousands of
adolescents were being locked away, often for petty offenses, after hearings
in which they had been effectively denied lawyers. When Luzerne County
District Attorney Jacqueline Musto Carroll challenged the 11 members of the
state-appointed Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice to "tell me
what you do when you have a judge who is a crook," she was promptly
interrupted by the questioner-in-chief. "You report him,"
interjected John M. Cleland, the commission chairman and a judge on the state
Superior Court. Cleland and his fellow panelists have until May 31 to
discover how two former judges, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T.
Conahan, managed to get away with what federal prosecutors say was a
five-year, $2.8 million kickback conspiracy, a scheme that one juvenile-justice
advocacy group called "one of the largest and most serious violations of
children's rights in the history of the American legal system." Musto
Carroll said she was unaware that more than half the teenagers whose cases
came before Ciavarella did not have legal representation. She said the
judge's "zero-tolerance" policy was a result of the 1999 Columbine
High School shootings. "I think Judge Ciavarella was probably doing what
he thought he ought to do," the district attorney testified. "I
have heard in a number of cases, what he did actually straightened
out kids' lives. Some went on to get scholarships and college
educations." That brought an angry response from panel member Robert L.
Listenbee, head of the juvenile unit of the Defender Association of
Philadelphia. "Ms. Carroll, I remind that you and I as attorneys took an
oath to uphold the Constitution. There were children here whose basic
constitutional rights were being violated every day. Let's keep that in
mind." Lawyer Kenneth J. Horoho Jr., a commissioner from Pittsburgh,
offered a litany of questions about Musto Carroll's having not known or
questioned Ciavarella's methods. Horoho concluded, "The bottom line is
that 'zero tolerance' went unchallenged by your office." "Don't worry
about Luzerne County," Musto Carroll assured the commission. "As
long as I'm here, it's in good hands." Yesterday's first witness was
David W. Lupas, Musto Carroll's predecessor as district attorney and now a
county judge, who said that none of his assistants ever brought concerns
about Ciavarella's conduct to his attention. Panel member Dwayne D. Woodruff
- the head juvenile judge in Allegheny County, and a former Pittsburgh
Steelers safety - noted that 54 percent of the children brought before
Ciavarella did not have lawyers. "Would you expect your assistant D.A.s
to come to you with that?" Woodruff asked. "No one came to
me," Lupas said. Cleland interjected, "I could understand a case
here and a case there. But 6,000 cases? This went on for years, and it was a
massive deprivation of rights. No assistant D.A., no public defender, no
private lawyer ever raised a question? That's hard to believe." Basil G.
Russin, who has been chief public defender in Luzerne County since 1980, said
that even if he had known the extent of Ciavarella's denial of rights to
juvenile defendants, he would not have had many options. "We don't have
the time or the money to look into things very deeply. We just do the best we
can," he said. Besides, Russin said, the judges' get-tough stance against
juvenile misbehavior had wide public support. "Everybody loved it. The
schools loved it because they got rid of every problem kid. The parents loved
it because there were kids they couldn't control. The cops loved it because
it got kids off the streets, and the D.A. loved it because they were getting
convictions." In earlier testimony, Sandra Brulo, a former Luzerne
County probation official, said she had raised concerns about Ciavarella with
her boss, but did not hear back. "Don't you think you should have taken
it further when you didn't get any satisfaction from your supervisor?"
asked Ronald P. Williams, a panel member from nearby Wyoming County, raising
his arms in amazement. "I took it to my boss," Brulo replied.
"That's as far as I thought I should go." She testified that
probation officers, not attorneys, asked young defendants to sign forms just
before they entered Ciavarella's courtroom that waived their right to a
lawyer. Commissioner George D. Mosee, a deputy Philadelphia district attorney,
asked Brulo if this was a proper role for probation officers. "We did
what the judge instructed us to do," she said. "Even when their
very liberty was at stake?" Mosee asked. Brulo did not answer. Joseph
Massa, senior counsel for the state Judicial Conduct Board, which
investigates complaints against judges, told the panel that his agency had
acted properly more than two years ago when it referred allegations it
received against Ciavarella and Conahan to federal prosecutors. By not acting
on its own, the board allowed the jurists to stay on the bench until they
resigned this year. The judges stepped down after a federal grand jury
indicted them on racketeering, bribery and fraud charges. "To allege the
[Judicial Conduct Board] members put their heads in the proverbial sand while
juveniles in this county were sent to the hoosegow is a disgrace," Massa
told the panel. Ciavarella is accused of taking bribes from operators of two
for-profit detention centers in return for sending children to the centers.
Conahan is accused of securing lucrative contracts for the private jails,
which the state paid according to the numbers of inmates they housed. Once
the scheme was set up, prosecutors say, Ciavarella guaranteed that the jails
were filled with a steady stream of juvenile offenders. Ciavarella and
Conahan are awaiting trial. They initially pleaded guilty but withdrew their
pleas after a federal judge rejected the terms of their plea agreements.

October
29, 2009 AP
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed thousands of juvenile
convictions issued by a judge charged in a corruption scandal, saying that
none of the young offenders got a fair hearing. The high court on Thursday
threw out more than five years' worth of juvenile cases heard by disgraced
former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, who is charged with accepting
millions of dollars in kickbacks to send youths to private detention centers.
The Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, which represents some of the
youths, said the court's order covers as many as 6,500 cases. The justices
barred any possibility of retrial in all but a fraction of them. "This
is exactly the relief these kids needed," said Marsha Levick, the
center's legal director. "It's the most serious judicial corruption scandal
in our history and the court took an extraordinary step in addressing
it." Children routinely appeared in front of Ciavarella without lawyers
for hearings that lasted only a few minutes. Ciavarella also failed to
question young defendants to make sure they fully understood the consequences
of waiving counsel and pleading guilty, showing "complete disregard for
the constitutional rights of the juveniles," the Supreme Court said.
After being found delinquent, the youths were often shackled and taken to
private jails whose owner was paying bribes to the judge. Federal prosecutors
have said that Ciavarella and another Luzerne County judge, Michael Conahan,
took a total of $2.8 million in payoffs. "Ciavarella's admission that he
received these payments, and that he failed to disclose his financial
interests arising from the development of the juvenile facilities, thoroughly
undermines the integrity of all juvenile proceedings before Ciavarella,"
the Supreme Court said.

October
28, 2009 The Citizens Voice
Former Judge Mark A. Ciavarella said little during a hearing today on his
request to be dismissed from a series of civil lawsuits filed in the
aftermath of the Luzerne County kids-for-cash scandal. Ciavarella, who is
representing himself, declined to make a formal argument before U.S. District
Judge A. Richard Caputo, instead deferring to a brief he filed asking for
dismissal on grounds of judicial immunity. Ciavarella's co-defendant, former
Judge Michael T. Conahan, did not attend the hearing, despite previously
asking to be dismissed from the case. Both former judges have said their
alleged conduct in the kids-for-cash scheme, including the closure of a
county juvenile detention facility and the contracting with a private jail,
were within the bounds of their duties as judges and courthouse
administrators. Attorneys for the plaintiffs in the lawsuits, the hundreds of
juveniles sentenced by Ciavarella between 2003 and May 2008, argued
Ciavarella and Conahan's conduct went beyond the scope of normal court
business. Conahan acted as a political lobbyist when he forced the closure of
the county facility and pressured county commissioners to approve a lucrative
lease with the private facility, the plaintiffs' attorneys said. Ciavarella
acted as a dictator on the bench, running a "star chamber" that
left juveniles' constitutional rights in tatters, the attorneys said.
"Ciavarella made up the rules on his own," Marsha Levick, the legal
director of the non-profit Juvenile Law Center, said. "He may as well
have set up the courtroom in his garage and put on the black robe."
Levick acknowledged the difficulty of clearing the hurdle of judicial
immunity, which was designed to give judges freedom to make rulings without
fear of legal retribution. "There is no question we are testing the bounds
of established legal principles," Levick said. "But we have never
seen anything like this."

October
25, 2009 Philadelphia Enquirer
In October 2005, a 16-year-old boy appeared in Luzerne County Court to answer
charges that he had shot out several windows in a city home with a BB gun.
The boy had never been in trouble with police before, and even the homeowner
asked the judge to be lenient, according to a federal lawsuit. Nevertheless,
Judge Mark A. Ciavarella, after repeatedly silencing the boy's court-appointed
attorney, ignored the homeowner's request and in a matter of minutes banged
his gavel and said, "Adjudicated delinquent!" The boy was
handcuffed, shackled, and taken in a van about 50 miles to a juvenile
"boot camp" for the next three months, the complaint states. The
boy's brief hearing in dark-paneled Courtroom 4 was closed to the public, but
it was witnessed by an assistant district attorney, the public defender,
other lawyers, probation officials, bailiffs, clerks, and other court staff,
according to the suit, filed by the Juvenile Law Center of Philadelphia. Now
the monumental task facing a special 11-member commission investigating what
one advocacy group called "one of the largest and most serious
violations of children's rights in the history of the American legal
system" is to determine how something like that could happen, how it can
be prevented - and why no one spoke up. State Superior Court Judge John M.
Cleland, chairman of the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice, said the
goal is to identify "those who knew but failed to speak" and
"those who saw but failed to act." While it cannot indict or
prosecute, the commission is empowered to investigate and recommend
legislation, rules, and other procedural changes. Ciavarella is accused of
taking bribes from private prison operators for every child he sent to two
private juvenile detention centers. Also accused is fellow Luzerne County
Judge Michael T. Conahan, who secured lucrative contracts for the private
jails, which were paid by the state according to their number of inmates.
Last month, Conahan and Ciavarella pleaded not guilty to federal racketeering
charges. They had agreed to plead guilty in February to lesser charges that
called for 87-month prison sentences, far below federal guidelines. But a
federal judge rejected the deal and said the two judges had not fully
accepted responsibility. They switched their pleas to not guilty, and
prosecutors secured a 48-count indictment that includes racketeering,
bribery, and extortion charges. Ciavarella presided over juvenile court in
Luzerne County between 2003 and 2007. According to the Juvenile Law Center,
children were summarily dispatched to incarceration after the briefest of
hearings, often without legal representation. Parents who had accompanied
their children to court and expected to return home with them instead left,
stunned and bewildered, without them. The Juvenile Law Center alleges that
something clearly was unusual about Ciavarella's courtroom. To wit: A
15-year-old boy was sent away for three months for pushing a classmate into a
locker. A 15-year-old girl was jailed for shoplifting a $4 jar of nutmeg. A
13-year-old girl went before Ciavarella for fighting on a school bus. The
judge asked why she had done it. Rather than answer, the girl started crying.
The lawsuit states that Ciavarella sent her away for three months for not
answering his questions. Records and interviews paint a picture of a kangaroo
court. Yet no one involved, directly or indirectly, spoke up. Lawyers, elected
officials, police, school administrators, teachers, probation officers,
prosecutors, and civil servants charged with protecting children all remained
silent. Ciavarella guaranteed that the jails were filled with a steady stream
of juvenile offenders. The prosecutors say the two judges received kickbacks
totaling $2.6 million from the former owner of two detention facilities and
their developer. There were bright red flags all over the city well before
the judges were charged in January. The Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader published
articles in 2004 raising serious and disturbing concerns about juvenile
cases. Robert Schwartz, the Juvenile Law Center's executive director, said in
an interview that detention-center workers had been told in advance - before
the hearings in Ciavarella's courtroom - how many new child inmates to expect
at the end of each day. For the commission, which has the power to subpoena
witnesses, there is no shortage of places to look. The other judges. Judge
Chester B. Muroski, who succeeded Ciavarella as president judge this year,
said he and his colleagues on the bench had been completely shielded from the
proceedings in juvenile court, first by Conahan and later by Ciavarella when
they served as president judge. He said the court seldom met as a unit to
discuss court matters. In 2006, when he began to suspect kickbacks, he
contacted the FBI. The court staff. Muroski said Conahan and Ciavarella had
packed the courthouse with relatives. Conahan's cousin was the court
administrator, a brother-in-law was jury management supervisor, and another
brother-in-law was paid $1.1 million in public funds for court-ordered
psychological evaluations. According to Muroski, other court-related workers
knew they were "there at Conahan's pleasure." "When I bucked
them in 2005, they reassigned me," he added. "That was a message to
everyone: Keep your mouth shut." According to the Juvenile Law Center,
Ciavarella routinely pressured probation officers to recommend detention even
when it was not appropriate. Often probation officers advised juvenile
defendants to appear before Ciavarella without legal counsel. Sometimes, the
center said, he pressured them to change their more lenient recommendations
to detention. The center cited the case of a 14-year-old boy arrested for
stealing loose change from unlocked cars. Police told his mother that he
would receive probation because it was a minor offense. Just before entering
Ciavarella's courtroom, his mother was asked to sign a waiver of counsel. She
said she wanted her son to have a lawyer, but could not afford to pay one. He
appeared before Ciavarella without counsel - and after a three-minute hearing
was sent to a detention center for a year. The county commissioners. To
further the kickback scheme, the center said, Conahan shut down Luzerne
County's juvenile detention facility in 2002, contending it was unsafe. Then
he persuaded the county commissioners to enter a 20-year, $58 million
agreement with PA Child Care L.L.C. to lease the new private facility. Soon
Ciavarella was filling the prison beds with delinquents, allegedly in
exchange for kickbacks. "Conahan had no power to close the center like
that," said Ronald P. Williams, a member of the interbranch commission
and a former commissioner in nearby Wyoming County. "Why did the
commissioners allow him to get away with it?" The schools. Ciavarella's
"zero tolerance" policy was warmly embraced by school
administrators, teachers unions, and many teachers, Muroski and Williams
said. "Everybody loved him," said Muroski. "He was putting bad
kids away. That's how it was perceived." Indeed, even six months after
the scandal became public, two administrators at the
Wilkes-Barre Area Vocational Technical School wrote a letter to the editor of
the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader praising Ciavarella. "His dedication to
working with our students created a bond of trust and confidence among him,
the students and the staff," the administrators wrote. The state court
system. The Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board, which is charged with investigating
and prosecuting complaints of wrongdoing by judges, received an anonymous
complaint about Conahan in 2006. However, the board has strict
confidentiality rules, and it has refused to say whether it followed up on
these allegations. The interbranch commission had hoped to hear testimony
from the board at its first hearing two weeks ago, but the appearance by a
board representative was canceled pending resolution of the confidentiality
issue. Ciavarella's tough stance with juveniles had widespread public
support. In 2006, the Wilkes-Barre Friendly Sons of St. Patrick named
Ciavarella its man of the year. This prompted U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski
(D., Pa.) to read a congratulation into the
Congressional Record. The commission, which must complete its work by May 31,
plans to hold two days of hearings in Wilkes-Barre next month. Among the
scheduled witnesses is Judge Arthur E. Grim, a special master appointed by
the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to review about 6,000 juvenile cases handled
by Ciavarella. Because of the allegations of wrongdoing, the state Supreme
Court has already overturned hundreds of convictions on the ground that
Ciavarella violated the constitutional rights of the defendants.

October
15, 2009 Philadelphia InquirerThe question hung over the hearing like a toxic cloud all day long: How
could two judges in Wilkes-Barre conspire over several years to deprive
hundreds of children of their most basic constitutional rights and send them
off in shackles to detention centers in which they had personal financial
interests? "There is no precedent that provides guidance about how to
proceed with anything we are being asked to do," said Judge John M.
Cleland of the state Superior Court, chairman of the Interbranch Commission
on Juvenile Justice. The 11-member commission has been established to
investigate what Cleland called "the breathtaking collapse of the
juvenile justice system in Luzerne County." It includes judges,
prosecutors, defense attorneys, and victims' advocates. They sat grim-faced
and listened to the first day of testimony on the extraordinary case of two
former Luzerne County judges - Mark A. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan -
who are accused of taking $2.6 million in bribes from private prison
operators over a period of seven years for sending young offenders to two
private juvenile detention centers. Under the "cash-for-kids"
scheme, prosecutors say, the judges conspired to deprive young defendants of
their right to counsel, ordered them into detention even when probation officers
didn't recommend it, pressured probation officials to change their
recommendations, and institutionalized them for offenses as minor as fighting
with other students in school. The main witness was Judge Chester B. Muroski,
who took over as president judge in Luzerne County after the scandal broke.
Muroski said that in 2005 he was in charge of the court's juvenile dependency
function and complained because his unit was underfunded by $800,000 while
Ciavarella's juvenile delinquency court was $2 million over budget. He said
that a few days later Conahan transferred him to criminal court even though
he had not handled a criminal case since 1979. But several commission members
pressed Muroski on why he and other Luzerne County Court judges had not done
more to stop Conahan and Ciavarella. "We knew there was something not
right," he said. "But the scheme was so contrived and had so many
labyrinths that at first we didn't know money was involved. Our main concern
was the high incarceration rate." Cleland said the commission would seek
to identify "all of those involved who, whether by action, inaction, or
silence, whether by willful choice or benign ignorance, engaged in an assault
on the fairness and impartiality of our legal system." In addition to
the other judges, the commission wants to know the roles of prosecutors,
public defenders, defense attorneys, police, school administrators, probation
officers, court staff, county commissioners, and state agencies with
responsibilities for juveniles. To these, Muroski added another layer of
responsibility - the public. "A lot of people admired what these judges
were doing," he said. "Many people knew how quick these proceedings
were, but they supported them." Muroski said school administrators,
teachers, and police supported and applauded the judges' efforts to get
disruptive youths out of the classroom and off the streets. And he said there
was nepotism in the courtroom itself that provided a "protective
shield" for Conahan and Ciavarella. Muroski noted that between 2001 and 2007,
Dr. Frank Vita, Conahan's brother-in-law, was paid $1.1 million in public
funds for court-ordered psychological evaluations - and many of these reports
had evaluation references that were copied and pasted from other reports.
Muroski said that he and the other judges were kept in the dark about
juvenile court proceedings by Ciavarella and Conahan, and that the court
seldom met as a unit to discuss problems. "What you had was a perfect
storm for a court gone rogue - no meetings, no information, and public
support." State Rep. Todd Eachus (D., Luzerne) testified that in 2006,
the state Public Welfare Department informed state legislators from the
Wilkes-Barre area that there was an inordinate amount of incarceration of
juveniles in Luzerne County, "but they said they would handle it."
Eachus, a cosponsor of the bill that created the commission, said Conahan and
Ciavarella were responsible for "one of the darkest chapters in
Pennsylvania history." State Sen. Lisa Baker (R., Luzerne), the bill's
other principal sponsor, cited an "atmosphere of intimidation that
permeated the courtroom and the courthouse." Then she asked: "Do we
really want a commonwealth where we rigorously track every dollar that moves
through casinos, but where we casually lose track of the constitutional
rights of thousands of kids?" There was considerable discussion on
whether the State Judicial Conduct Board, which is charged with investigating
and prosecuting complaints against judges, had received complaints about the
two judges. Muroski said he believed a complaint had been filed in 2005, but
he could not confirm this. Muroski said Conahan arbitrarily, without
consulting the other judges, shut down a county juvenile detention center in
2002 on grounds it was substandard, paving the way for their young offenders
to be sent to the favored private center. This prompted Judge John C. Uhler
of York County, one of the 11 commission members, to ask, "Did you or
your colleagues ever challenge the closing of this center?" "We were
astonished that he did this, but what could we do?" Muroski replied.
"The commissioners went along. They could have stopped it." The
expressions on the commission members' faces went from anger to disbelief to
shock as the testimony unfolded. The plan is to hold as many hearings as
necessary, including two days of sessions next month in Wilkes-Barre. The
scandal led the state Supreme Court to overturn hundreds of convictions on
the ground that Ciavarella violated the constitutional rights of youths who
appeared in his courtroom without lawyers for hearings that lasted just a few
minutes. More convictions are under review. Last month Conahan and Ciavarella
pleaded not guilty to federal racketeering charges growing out of the scheme.
They had agreed to plead guilty in February to lesser charges that called for
87-month prison sentences, far below federal guidelines. But a federal judge
rejected the deal and said the two judges had not fully accepted
responsibility for the crimes. They switched their pleas to not guilty, and prosecutors
secured a 48-count indictment that includes racketeering, bribery, and
extortion charges.

September
10, 2009 Times-LeaderA federal grand jury filed a 48-count indictment Wednesday against Mark
Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, charging the former Luzerne County judges
with racketeering, extortion, bribery, money laundering, fraud and tax
violations. The indictment, issued by a grand jury in Dauphin County, alleges
Conahan and Ciavarella received millions of dollars in illegal payments in
connection with improper actions they took to facilitate the construction and
operation of the PA and Western PA Child Care juvenile detention centers,
according to a press release issued by U.S. Attorney Dennis Pfannenschmidt.
In addition to the charges, prosecutors are seeking forfeiture of at least
$2.8 million they allege is the proceeds of criminal activity, the release
said. Pfannenschmidt issued the press release at around 5 p.m. Wednesday. The
document provided only a vague description of the charges. It did not provide
any further details of the former judges’ conduct. A copy of the indictment
could not be obtained Wednesday as it was not publicly filed with the federal
court’s electronic system. Pfannenschmidt did not respond to a request to
provide a paper copy of the indictment. He also declined to comment further
on the case. Speculation that Conahan and Ciavarella would be indicted has
been rampant since a plea deal the men reached with federal prosecutors fell
apart last month. The former judges pleaded guilty in February to charges of
honest services fraud and tax evasion under plea agreement that called for
them to serve 87 months in prison. They withdrew the plea on Aug. 24 after
U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik rejected terms of the agreement, saying the
men had not adequately demonstrated they accepted responsibility for their
conduct. Ciavarella’s attorney, Al Flora, and Conahan’s attorney, Philip
Gelso, declined comment on the indictment. Flora said he expects Ciavarella
and Conahan will next appear before a federal magistrate judge for
arraignment on the charges. He did not know when that arraignment would take
place. The charges contained in the indictment are far more serious and carry
significantly stiffer sentences than what Conahan and Ciavarella faced under
the plea deal, according to Douglas McNabb, a Washington, D.C., defense
attorney who specializes in federal law. “It is a very serious set of charges
that could bring substantial jail time if they are convicted on all counts,”
McNabb said. For instance, McNabb said the money laundering and fraud charges
alone each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Although the
indictment was not available, information contained in a complaint filed
against Conahan and Ciavarella in January and documents filed in connection
with charges against two other defendants involved in the scheme provide some
insight into the conduct that likely was the basis of the indictment. The
extortion charge likely refers to attorney Robert Powell, who co-owned the PA
and Western PA Child Care Centers. Powell alleges Ciavarella demanded he pay kickbacks totaling $772,500 to compensate the
judges for decisions they made that benefited the two juvenile centers. Those
decisions included Conahan’s closure in 2002 of the county-run juvenile
facility. Prosecutors allege Ciavarella, the county’s long-time juvenile
judge, ensured a high occupancy rate at the centers by incarcerating youths
even when probation department officials recommended against detention.
Powell pleaded guilty in July to failing to report a felony and being an
accessory after the fact to tax evasion for his role in the scheme. In
addition to the money he paid, prosecutors allege Powell helped funnel
approximately $2 million that was paid to the judges by Robert Mericle, the
contractor who built the two centers. That funneling of money is likely the
basis of the money laundering charge contained in the indictment. Money
laundering involves a scheme to disguise the source of illegally obtained
income to make it appear as though the money was legitimately earned.
According to the initial complaint filed against Conahan and Ciavarella,
Powell disguised the money he paid the judges by listing it as rental
payments for a Florida condominium owned by the judges’ wives. Prosecutors
also alleged the part of the money Mericle paid was funneled through Vision
Holdings, a company Powell owned. It was not clear Wednesday whether the
money Mericle paid could be considered as part of the money laundering
charge. Prosecutors do not contend the payment of the money was illegal,
which is a necessary element of money laundering. Mericle pleaded guilty last
week to failing to report a felony. Prosecutors say Mericle knew that
Ciavarella had not reported the money Mericle paid him on his income tax
returns, but failed to disclose that information to federal authorities. At
Mericle’s plea hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Zubrod said the $2
million Mericle paid was a “finder’s fee” to reward Ciavarella for
introducing Mericle to Powell. Zubrod said the payment of the fee itself is a
standard practice in real estate and is not illegal. The illegality came when
Mericle failed to reveal that information to a grand jury and federal
prosecutors when questioned about it.

August
1, 2009 Philadelphia InquirerIn a major reversal, a federal judge rejected plea agreements yesterday
for two disgraced former Luzerne County Court judges accused of taking
kickbacks for sending juveniles to for-profit detention centers. U.S.
District Judge Edwin M. Kosik issued a five-page order saying Mark A.
Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan had taken actions or made public
statements since their February guilty pleas that demonstrated that they had
not accepted responsibility for their crimes. The order opened the door for
the defendants to withdraw their guilty pleas and go to trial, renegotiate
their plea deals, or throw themselves on the mercy of the court, said Daniel
Richman, a law professor at Columbia University and a former federal
prosecutor. For the third option, however, "this judge has demonstrated
that there might not be that much mercy involved," Richman said. The
agreements, in exchange for pleading guilty to corruption and tax fraud, had
been criticized as too lenient. Both defendants were facing 87 months - less
than 71/2 years - in prison, which was "well below the sentencing
guidelines for the charged offenses," Kosik wrote. Ciavarella and
Conahan originally faced maximum sentences of 25 years each and substantial
fines, Kosik wrote. The plea deals were binding, meaning the judge did not
have the discretion to impose his own sentence. "This is a relatively
rare instance," Richman said, "where a judge is given a
take-it-or-leave-it choice on sentencing, and the judge chose to leave
it." Ciavarella and Conahan are accused of collecting a total of $2.6
million over seven years from a former owner of two for-profit detention
centers - one in Luzerne County and the other in Butler County - and their
developer. The ex-judges are accused of helping the detention centers obtain
$58 million in contracts, suppressing a critical audit of one of the centers,
and closing a competing county-run detention center. "The matter is
under review with our client and in consult with the U.S. Attorney's Office,"
said Al Flora Jr., Ciavarella's lawyer. Conahan and his lawyer could not be
reached for comment. "We are reviewing the court's order to determine
the appropriate course of action in this case in light of the court's
ruling," Martin C. Carlson, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of
Pennsylvania, said in a statement. Kosik wrote that in the presentence
report, Conahan "refused to discuss the motivation behind his conduct,
attempted to obstruct and impede justice, and failed to clearly demonstrate affirmative
acceptance of responsibility." Ciavarella, Kosik wrote, "continues
to deny what he terms 'quid pro quo,' his receipt of money as a finder's
fee." Kosik said Ciavarella's denials "are self-serving and
abundantly contradicted by the evidence." In a brief interview with the
Wilkes-Barre Citizens Voice on Monday, Ciavarella took issue with the way the
media have described him. "You people said I took bribes, that I
committed extortion, that I traded kids for cash, that I had a quid pro
quo," Ciavarella told the newspaper. "Where in my guilty plea does
it say that?" Marsha Levick, chief counsel for the Juvenile Law Center
in Philadelphia, which is seeking to overturn rulings against juveniles the
ex-judges sent away and who has filed civil-rights lawsuits on the
youngsters' behalf, said she did not anticipate Kosik's rejection of the plea
deals. Levick said the order reflected Kosik's "concern about the
magnitude of what happened in Luzerne County and the importance of restoring
public confidence in the justice system." As for the defendants, "I
think it's pretty bad news for them," Levick
said. In his order, Kosik paraphrased what has been said about judges, that
"integrity is their lot and proper virtue, the landmark, and he that
removes it corrupts the fountain." "In this case, the fountain from
which the public drinks is confidence in the judicial system, a fountain
which may be corrupted for a time well after this case."

July
28, 2009 American Free PressLawyers who argue that thousands of juveniles were sentenced to prison
terms by corrupt judges are petitioning a US federal court in Pennsylvania to
preserve the case record so they can sue for damages. Attorneys are seeking
to stop the destruction of files related to the cases of an unknown number of
juveniles who received prison sentences for minor offenses from two judges
who were later found to have accepted bribes from private prison companies.
The petition before a federal judge in Scranton, Pennsylvania came after the
state's Supreme Court in March agreed to expunge the youths' criminal
records, but also ordered the destruction of their files. Without at least
one copy of the relevant files, attorney Lourdes Rosado told AFP, the
juveniles will be unable to pursue a civil case seeking damages. "The
federal court needs that information in order to decide whether or not that
claim is valuable and whether or not the children are entitled to
relief," said Rosado, associate director of the Juvenile Law Center, a
non-profit group which advocates for children's rights. After months of
procedural battles, the state Supreme Court agreed last week to preserve
under seal a copy of documents related to 400 juveniles who have so far been
identified as victims and have filed lawsuits. But, according to Rosado, the
total number of victims "could be up to 6,500" and attorneys are
now calling for a class action lawsuit to be certified for all the children
who appeared before the judges between 2003 and 2008. Judges Mark Ciavarella
and Michael Conahan of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania admitted last February to
having accepted 2.6 million dollars from private prisons in exchange for
giving juveniles sentences that were disproportionate to their offenses.
Ciavarella and Conahan have filed a petition seeking the dismissal of lawsuits
seeking damages, citing "the doctrine of judicial immunity." Among
those sentenced by the judges was a young man who received nine months for
having stolen a jar of nutmeg worth four dollars, and another juvenile who
was sentenced to three months for stealing some change from a car.

July
24, 2009 The Morning CallThe sense of putrefaction in everything the Pennsylvania Supreme Court
touches keeps growing. Even if this court did not play a key role in other
scandals -- including the illegal pay grab for judges and other politicians,
and the illegal enactment of slot machine casino legislation -- its actions
in the Luzerne County Court corruption case would illustrate just how
wretched it is. Most recently, we learned that the Supremes connived to help
a fellow robe wearer, former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, escape
accountability in lawsuits that threaten to put a dent in the millions of
dollars in payoffs he took. (Ciavarella and another judge pleaded guilty in
federal court in a case that involved the placement of juveniles -- on the
flimsiest of evidence and in return for big payoffs -- in a commercial
detention facility run by the son of a former Supreme.) On Wednesday, the
front page had an Associated Press story saying the current Supremes refused
to preserve juvenile records deemed essential for the lawsuits. That story
noted a ''Hobson's choice'' offered by the court. It would preserve the
records of any juvenile who requested it, but that would mean the juvenile's
''adjudication'' (in essence, a finding of guilty by Ciavarella the crook)
would be reinstated. We'll let you smart alecks preserve the documents
necessary for you to sue our kindred spirit, the Supreme seemed to be saying,
but maybe we'll throw you back in juvie jail for trying to exercise that
right. On Thursday, a smaller AP story said the Supremes would allow records
to be preserved, but only for juveniles who have already filed lawsuits
against Ciavarella. Records showing how Ciavarella victimized thousands of
other juveniles, who might sue if they can get the documentation to prove
their claims, will not be protected. It was not clear if the Hobson's choice
was still in place. Ciavarella and fellow Judge Michael Cannon began their
corrupt jurisprudence in 2003, taking money to confine juveniles in a private
jail owned by Gregory Zappala, the son of former
Supreme Stephen Zappala Sr. By 2007, the Pennsylvania Juvenile Law Center
found a pattern of children being denied their rights in Luzerne County. In
April 2008, the JLC petitioned the Supremes to intercede. The Supremes
trashed the petition without explanation. In this climate, similar to the one
in Mississippi involving civil rights cases a half century ago, there was no
way those two Luzerne judges were going to be held accountable in any state
court. (All state courts are regulated by the Supremes.) When the two judges
were finally prosecuted in federal court in January, the state Supremes were
forced to act. They appointed a master, retired Berks County Judge Arthur
Grim, to investigate. By March, the Supremes had to accept Grim's
recommendation to vacate the obviously bogus Luzerne County juvenile
adjudications. In May, the Supremes issued a notice saying the juvenile
victims could get copies of their records, but the JLC observed it was
''replete'' with so much legalese that parents could never understand it, and
it also gave them only a few weeks to act. The JLC asked the Supremes for a
clarification the families could understand. They refused, again with no
explanation. A few days later, however, Master Grim did issue an order to
provide for such a clarification. That move was killed by the Supremes the
very next day. When the JLC sought a federal court order to protect the
records, the state Supremes sent a letter to the federal court opposing it,
and kept that letter secret from the JLC or any of the parents. The feds went
along with the Supremes, citing ''federalism'' prerogatives that serve to
keep systems independent of each other. A JLC motion then observed that the Supremes
delivered a threat. ''The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in denying requests for
preservation of a single copy of juveniles' records for the sole purpose of
federal litigation, has explained that it will not permit juveniles'
adjudications to be vacated ... if they request a copy of their records to
prevent their destruction,'' the JLC motion says. In other words, if you try
to preserve the proof so you can sue our fellow robe wearer for some of the
loot he took in illegal payoffs, we may arrange for you to do it from a cell
in a juvenile detention center. All Pennsylvanians, not just the families of
Luzerne County, need to start looking at what happened here -- and they need
to start sniffing at the smell of putrefaction -- from a very personal viewpoint.
If innocent, or relatively innocent, children in one county can be
incarcerated just so a couple of judges can collect millions, it can happen
anywhere. It can happen to your children, and you can expect no help from the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In fact, you can expect the opposite. I keep
wondering what it will take for people to get angry enough to demand that
their elected officials make some changes.

February
26, 2009 New York TimesMore than 70 juveniles and their families filed a class-action lawsuit
Thursday against two former judges who pleaded guilty this month in a scheme
that involved their taking kickbacks to put young offenders in privately run
detention centers. The suit contends that before resigning last year, the
judges “used kids as commodities that could be traded for cash,” placing an
“indelible stain” on the juvenile justice system of Luzerne County in
northeastern Pennsylvania. The suit, filed in the Federal District Court in
Scranton by the Juvenile Law Center, seeks to have all profits that the
detention centers earned from the scheme placed in a fund that would
compensate the youths for their emotional distress. In an earlier filing, the
law center, based in Philadelphia, asked the State Supreme Court to clear the
records of all juveniles who appeared before the judges, Mark A. Ciavarella
Jr. and Michael T. Conahan. The suit brought Thursday is the third filed on
behalf of juvenile offenders. The two others, one of which also seeks
class-action status, were filed by private lawyers. Mr. Ciavarella and Mr.
Conahan pleaded guilty on Feb. 12 to federal charges of wire and income-tax
fraud for having taken more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers
to the two privately operated centers, run by PA Child Care and a sister company,
Western PA Child Care. “Judge Ciavarella’s placement of so many children in
juvenile facilities without regard for their underlying charges suggests a
Procrustean scheme that violated one of the core principles of the juvenile
justice system — the right to individualized treatment and rehabilitation,”
Lourdes M. Rosado, associate director of the Juvenile Law Center, said in a
statement. Lawyers for the two former judges declined to comment on the suit.
As for the criminal investigation of court personnel, two additional people
have already been charged, and federal officials say they may soon charge
others involved in the scheme.

February
19, 2009 Standard-SpeakerA witness will testify that one or both of the disgraced Luzerne County
judges who’ve pleaded guilty to accepting millions in kickbacks have “direct
connections” to jailed mobster William “Big Billy” D’Elia, according to a
petition to be filed today in the state Supreme Court by lawyers for the
owners of the Standard-Speaker. The petition asks the court to vacate a $3.5
million defamation verdict issued by suspended Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr.
in June 2006 against The Scranton Times L.P., a related company called The
Times Partners and former Citizens’ Voice reporter Edward Lewis. Following a
non-jury trial, Ciavarella ruled in favor of West Pittston businessman Thomas
A. Joseph, who claimed he was defamed in a series of newspaper stories in
2001 following federal raids at Joseph’s business and homes owned by Joseph,
D’Elia and others. In its petition, Scranton Times L.P. alleges that
then-President Judge Michael T. Conahan and his first cousin, Court
Administrator William T. Sharkey Sr. “steered” the case into Ciavarella’s
courtroom, ignoring the usual practice in which cases were assigned on a rotating
basis. Ciavarella issued one-sided rulings and ignored evidence that Joseph
and D’Elia were close associates who were suspected of money laundering, the
petition says. D’Elia was arrested on money laundering charges in May 2006, a
month before the trial. Joseph was never charged. In his opinion, Ciavarella
wrote “there was no credible evidence presented at trial linking the two men
beyond being social acquaintances.” In the past week, Conahan and Ciavarella
have pleaded guilty to accepting $2.6 million in kickbacks from a juvenile
detention owner and contractor and Sharkey has pleaded guilty to embezzling
more than $70,000 from the county. “The unusual handling of judicial
assignments in Joseph v. Scranton Times, the scope and subject of newspaper articles
in question, and a cascade of recent revelations regarding corruption in the
Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas strongly suggest the $3.5 million
non-jury verdict was rigged …” the petition says. “Petitioners have
identified a potential witness who, on reliable information and to
Petitioners’ belief, would testify concerning direct connections between
D’Elia and Judge Conahan and/or Judge Ciavarella.” The petition asks the
court to allow Scranton Times L.P. to gather evidence that it believes will
reveal additional evidence of ties between D’Elia and one or both of the
judges. Kevin C. Abbott, an attorney for Scranton Times L.P., declined
comment on the petition or the identity of the unnamed witness. “We’re going
to let it speak for itself,” he said. Joseph and his attorneys did not
immediately return phone messages. Conahan, Ciavarella and Sharkey could not
be reached for comment. Ciavarella’ attorney, Albert Flora Jr., said he
hadn’t seen the petition and could not comment. Conahan’s attorney, Philip
Gelso, and Sharkey’s attorney, Bruce Miller, did not immediately return phone
messages. D’Elia’s attorney, James Swetz, did not immediately return a phone
message. D’Elia, 62, the longtime reputed head of the Bufalino crime family
is serving nine years in federal prison for money laundering and witness
tampering. Scranton Times L.P.’s petition argues that Ciavarella ignored
evidence in federal search warrant affidavits presented during the trial that
stated D’Elia and Joseph were “involved in and/or have knowledge of various
federal criminal violations.” The affidavits quoted confidential sources who
alleged Joseph and D’Elia were involved in money laundering. The petition
also argues that Sharkey and Conahan worked together to ensure the pre-trial
hearings and the actual trial would be assigned to Ciavarella even though
Ciavarella and Conahan had assured Scranton Times L.P. that the selection of
a trial judge would be made at random by the Court Administrator’s Office.
The petition cited a record recently obtained from the Court Administrator’s
Office that notes the case was assigned by WTS, which are Sharkey’s initials,
at the direction of MTC, which are Conahan’s. Conahan refused a request from
Scranton Times L.P. to have a judge from another county hear the case.
Scranton Times L.P. unsuccessfully appealed the Ciavarella’s verdict in state
Superior Court, which upheld the verdict in September. The petition to be
filed today cites numerous aspects of the corruption investigation that led
to charges against Conahan, Ciavarella and Sharkey including: A statement
from attorneys for Robert J. Powell, a Butler Township attorney whose company
allegedly paid some of the kickbacks to the two judges, that claimed Conahan
and Ciavarella had extorted payments from him because he was “particularly
vulnerable to the pressures that these Judges could bring to bear on him and
his clients.” A review of the system for appointing neutral arbitrators in
certain insurance cases in Luzerne County Court ordered by President Judge
Chester B. Muroski in reaction to media reports of rumors of case-fixing and
the possible manipulation of that process by Conahan and Ciavarella. A column
in the legal journal The Legal Intelligencer citing rumors that “the
investigation of the judges was the result of William D’Elia talking. D’Elia
has been in federal custody since October 2006. In July 2007, he appeared
before a Dauphin County grand jury that later recommended perjury charges
against Dunmore landfill magnate Louis A. DeNaples. DeNaples is accused of
hiding his ties to D’Elia and other crime figures when seeking a state casino
license. Joseph appeared before the same grand jury in August 2007. Federal
prosecutors say D’Elia aided the Dauphin County case against DeNaples and he
could win a reduced sentence for continued cooperation. The perjury case
against DeNaples has been stalled by his appeals in state Supreme Court.
Conahan and DeNaples served together on the board of First National Community
Bank in Dunmore, where DeNaples was chairman until federal bank regulators
suspended him in reaction to the perjury charges in January 2008. Conahan
resigned from the board last month after the charges against him were
announced. In the past two weeks the bank has filed legal action to collect $4.15
million from defaulted loans guaranteed by Conahan, Ciavarella, bank board
member Michael G. Cestone, Powell and his law partner, Luzerne County
Prothonotary Jill A. Moran. The loans were taken by W-Cat Inc., the company
behind a failed townhouse development in Wright Township.

January
27, 2009 APTwo Pennsylvania judges agreed Monday to plead guilty to fraud charges
accusing them of taking $2.6 million in kickbacks in return for placing
juvenile offenders into certain detention facilities. The plea agreements for
Luzerne County President Judge Mark Ciavarella (shiv-ah-REL'-lah) and Senior
Judge Michael Conahan (CON'-ah-han) call for sentences of more than seven
years in prison. Both judges have agreed to step down from the bench.
Authorities say the judges took kickbacks between 2003 and 2007 in exchange
for guaranteeing the placement of juvenile offenders into facilities operated
by PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care LLC. In some cases, Ciavarella
ordered children into detention even when juvenile probation officers did not
recommend it. "They sold their oaths of offices to the highest
bidders," Deron Roberts, chief of the FBI's Scranton office, said at a
news conference Monday. U.S. Attorney Martin Carlson stressed the charges
were "the first developments in an ongoing investigation" into
public corruption at the courthouse in Wilkes-Barre. PA Child Care and
Western PA Child Care have not been charged with wrongdoing. Luzerne County
District Attorney Jackie Musto Carroll said her office would review cases in
which offenders might have been improperly placed into juvenile detention.
The Juvenile Law Center, a Philadelphia-based advocacy group, complained last
year to the state Supreme Court about the treatment of children in Luzerne
County juvenile court, asking for the nullification of decisions in hundreds
of cases. Juveniles were often denied their constitutional right to lawyers
and were disproportionately sentenced to ill-advised, out-of-home placements,
the group said. "We feel that it's a great day for the young people and
the youth of this area to see the system really does work, the system really
isn't rigged against them," said Jack Van Reeth, whose daughter was
ordered detained in 2007 by Ciavarella. "It's just wonderful to see that
the scheme of jailing for dollars has come to an end." Jessica Van
Reeth, then 16, was sent to a juvenile wilderness camp for three months after
admitting that she had possessed a cigarette lighter and pipe in school. She
told The Associated Press last year that the items were found in a purse she
agreed to hold for a friend. The family, expecting probation, waived her
right to a lawyer, unaware of the potential consequences. Jack Van Reeth said
Monday his daughter is "extremely happy. She said that this is better than
Christmas."

Moshannon Valley Correctional Center
Clearfield, Pennsylvania
GEO Group (bought Cornell)
February 18, 2012 Centre Daily Times
A push by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to cut costs may result in the closing
of the beleaguered Moshannon Valley Correctional Center in Clearfield County.
The 1,495-bed, low-security prison owned by the Florida-based GEO Group,
opened after much controversy in 2006 as the only privately operated prison
in Pennsylvania. Last Tuesday, the prison’s union voted against taking a pay
cut, a move that will may cost the GEO Group its
federal contract, according to Thomas Hearn, vice president of the local
chapter of the International Union of Security, Police and Fire Professionals
of America, which represents 145 employees at the Decatur Township facility.
“The company had some real concerns that if they weren’t able to meet the
financial package the federal government wants to see, then they may lose the
contract to house the inmates at that prison,” Hearn said. Stan LaFuria, president
of the Moshannon Valley Economic Development Partnership, confirmed the GEO
Group had asked for concessions from the union. “Our organization has heard
about the situation with the GEO Group and their employees,” he said. “We are
truly hoping that any issues will be resolved. The last thing in the world we
want is for anything to happen to that facility, which is extremely important
to our area.” The prison, which was built at a cost of $54 million, primarily
houses criminal aliens, may be affected by a proposal by President Barack
Obama to drop funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program from
$240 to $70 million, officially announced on Monday. The union did not take a
position on the employees’ decision not to take a pay reduction from $21.65
per hour to $18.65 per hour, according to Hearn. “The members determine their
own future and the union supports them in their decision,” Hearn said. “I
know you hear a lot about how the union wants you to do this or that, but the
decision is our membership’s to make.” Andy Rebar, a Decatur Township
(Clearfield County) supervisor whose son works at the prison and was present
for the meeting, said the vote was tough for those who took part because of
its potential consequences, but the more important vote was held in August
2011, when the prison employees voted to unionize. “That may have been the
one that cut off their nose to spite their face,” he said. Rebar said he
couldn’t understand what had happened that had resulted in the prison’s
contract being renegotiated by the federal government. “The contract wasn’t
up until 2016,” he said. “I don’t know what happened or what changed there.”
The facility is competing for a contract with a private prison in northeast
Ohio, according to both Rebar and Hearn.

September 17, 2009 The Tribune-Democrat
Two former guards at a federal prison in Philipsburg pleaded guilty Wednesday
to providing inmates with contraband, including cell phones, cigarettes, MP3
players and muscle enhancers. Bryan Williams II and Ryan J. Spicher were
sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson in Johnstown to one year of
probation and a $1,000 fine each. They had pleaded guilty to one count each
of providing contraband inside the Moshannon Valley Correctional Center in
Centre County. The prison is a low-security lockup for male prisoners in the
federal system. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie L. Haines said Williams was
involved in the criminal activity from June 2007 to Dec. 11, 2007. Spicher
furnished the contraband to inmates from January 2007 to Aug. 31 of that same
year, Haines said. The men could have faced prison terms of up to six months
and fines of up to $5,000. Moshannon Valley prison is run by Cornell Cos.

February 11, 2009 The Progress News
At yesterday's Clearfield County commissioners' meeting, Decatur Township
Supervisor Andy Rebar asked the commissioners to correct inequities in
property taxes by performing a countywide property reassessment. According to
Mr. Rebar, county residents are unfairly shouldering too much of the property
tax burden while commercial property owners are getting a break. Mr. Rebar
said the impetus for this occurred when the Cornell private prison opened
several years ago in Decatur Township. He said it was projected to provide
local municipalities and the school district with $1 million a year in tax
revenue, but after the county assessed the property it only ended up paying
roughly half that. Mr. Rebar said he then looked at what other commercial
property owners were paying in real estate taxes and said he discovered that
they were disproportionately low when compared to residential properties.

May 5, 2008 The Progress News
Some 126 local, county and state officials and guests gathered Friday at
Brady Township Community Center for the Clearfield County Association of
Township Officials Spring Convention. There are 30 second class townships in
the county as well as 19 boroughs and one city… Andy Rebar, Decatur Township
supervisor, spoke to the group about the Cornell facility that he said is a
federally funded, federally contracted private prison built in Decatur
Township. He said he was "wholeheartedly" in favor of it and the
annual funding for the township was to be $57,000 to $62,000 but instead only
$15,290 was received. He said the township has hired a legal team and will
fight this. He asked for help from other officials by writing a letter of
support. He said property assessments need to be fair and balanced.
Clearfield County commissioner Mark McCracken said the county is aware of the
situation and is taking action.

September 22, 2007 Altoona Mirror
A federal judge has rejected a request by an inmate at the Moshannon Valley
Correctional Center to stop sending “Latino” inmates to the facility. Rudolph
P. Keszthelyi contended in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Johnstown that
prison authorities are segregating primarily illegal immigrants at Moshannon
Valley, a private prison operated by Cornell Co. Inc. of Houston, Texas. The
prison, located in the Phillipsburg area, has been open for about a year. In
his suit, Keszthelyi claims that the atmosphere at the prison is volatile
because of a large number of Latino inmates, and a minority
of black inmates from Washington, D.C., are being housed there. The
prison holds few whites. Keszthelyi asked for an injunction to bring about an
immediate change so that the inmate population will be more racially
balanced. Federal magistrate Lisa Pupo Lenihan recommended in August that no
injunction be issued because she said Keszthelyi could not show “irreparable
harm” if the request was denied. The inmate filed objections to Lenihan’s
report, arguing that segregation of inmates was illegal and noting that “the
atmosphere at Moshannon Valley is oppressive, as at any time the majority of
Latino prisoners can decide to take matters into their own hands and cause
harm to a minority group or one individual.” He said the situation is causing
him “severe emotional distress.” U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson this week
adopted the magistrate’s recommendations and dismissed the request for an
injunction. The magistrate said any request for an injunction “must always be
viewed with great caution because judicial restraint is especially called for
in dealing with the complex and intractable problems of prison
administration.” She said “The federal courts are not overseers of the
day-to-day management of prisons.” Keszthelyi claims a race riot broke out
Feb. 6 at the prison, resulting in a month-and-a-half lockdown of the
facility.

May 1, 2007 Centre Daily Times
A school district and township, set to take in more than $200,000 in annual
property tax revenue from Pennsylvania's first private prison, are now
appealing a county assessment of the $74 million facility in an effort to get
additional funds. The appeals process could take months and discussion at the
first hearing Monday indicated the matter is likely headed to the Clearfield
County Court of Common Pleas. "This is an unusual facility that is going
to take some unusual valuation, conclusions, theories, projections and
assumptions, and I see this case in court," said Anthony R. Thompson, an
Allentown attorney representing Cornell Cos. Inc. -- a Texas firm that built
the Moshannon Valley Correctional Facility. The 1,300-bed prison, owned by
W.B.P. Leasing Inc., is located in Decatur Township, which filed an appeal in
March. Shortly thereafter, the Philipsburg-Osceola Area school board
authorized its solicitor, Winifred Jones-Wenger, to join with the township in
the appeal. She has not yet filed the paperwork to intervene but plans to do
so, she said Monday. But the local solicitors won't be handling the case
themselves. The township and school district have retained a Pittsburgh firm,
Hollinshead, Mendelson, Bresnahan and Nixon. Clearfield County assessed the prison
at about $2.5 million, and its market value is listed about $10 million. From
the time Decatur Township and Philipsburg-Osceola Area School District
received their first tax payments from the facilities, officials from both
entities voiced displeasure, saying the revenue wasn't what they expected.
The facility cost $74 million to construct. In correspondence dating back to
the late 1990s, the prison had promised almost $1 million annually in
combined tax revenues and payments. The township and school district haven't
seen a third of that since the prison opened a year ago, and they won't,
based on the current full assessment. But Cornell, which was embroiled in a
legal battle over whether state law allows private prisons, has said the
scope of the project changed significantly, resulting in a much smaller
facility with less business than was first proposed seven years ago. At the
onset of the hearing Monday, the county assessment appeals board asked to see
an appraisal of the prison. Attorney William P. Bresnahan, of the Pittsburgh
firm, was unable to provide one because an appraiser had only been retained
10 days ago. He asked the board for more time. "We thought it would be
much more helpful if we went through this proceeding with the real estate
appraiser to give you his insight," he told the board. In an interview
afterward, Bresnahan explained that finding someone certified in Pennsylvania
who could appraise the prison was a difficult task. But Paul Griffith, of
Integra Realty Resources, was retained, he said. Thompson asked the board not
to allow the hearing to continue. The matter will go to court, he said, and
he would like to see it "resolved sooner rather than later." He
also questioned whether the board had the authority to issue a continuance for
the hearing. The board decided to talk with its solicitor and make a decision
sometime this week.

February 8, 2007 Altoona MirrorAn inmate at the recently opened private prison in Clearfield County
wants more diversity in its population. Rudolph P. Keszthelyi, serving a
10-year federal sentence, said the prison, Moshannon Valley Corrections
Center, and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons have limited the population to illegal
immigrants who have committed crimes and to inmates from Washington, D.C.,
who are almost all black. Keszthelyi says it’s a violation of the 14th
Amendment to segregate inmates. Keszthelyi said in its first five months, the
facility experienced two food strikes and “numerous violent assaults between
prisoners of different ethnic origins.” He was one of two Moshannon Valley
inmates whose lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court clerk’s office
in Johnstown this week. The second inmate, Ervin Leka, serving 18 months for
conspiracy to possess marijuana, complained that the prison is stamping mail
that inmates send to their families outside the U.S. with large red letters,
stating “Inmate Mail.” “My family is in a small village and now is ostracized
because somebody saw the envelope with ‘Inmate Mail’ stamped on it,” Leka
stated in a complaint to prison authorities.

February 7, 2007 WJAC TVSecurity has been heightened and the Moshannon Valley Corrections Center
remains on lockdown, after a Tuesday lunch-hour inmate fight. According to
officials, at least one person was hurt and additional personnel had to be
called in to help clear the scene. Prison administrators said things got out
of hand when two groups of inmates began arguing about a basketball game. One
inmate suffered a head injury and a medical helicopter was called to the
scene. Ambulance and other emergency crews were called in, but were held at
the prison perimeter until the scene was secured. There is no word yet on
other possible injuries.

January 15, 2007 Centre Daily TimesThe Moshannon Valley Correctional Facility, a $74 million private prison
expected to provide an economic boom to Clearfield County, will not generate
the amount of tax revenues it promised local officials years ago. Cornell
Companies Inc., a Texas-based firm that owns the facility and may soon merge
with Veritas Capital in New York, says the 1,300-bed facility is markedly
smaller than what was initially proposed. And that's why the prison's tax
bill is several hundred thousand dollars less than local officials expected.
"The scale of the project was cut fairly significantly," said
Christine Parker, a Cornell spokeswoman. In correspondence dating back as
early as 1999, Morris and Decatur townships and the Philipsburg-Osceola Area
School District were told that they would see almost $1 million annually in
combined tax revenues and payments. The townships and district haven't seen a
third of that since the prisoners arrived in spring 2006. And they won't ever
see what they expected, now that the facility has been fully assessed.
"I truly hope that this is a mistake and not some sort of
favoritism," said Andrew Rebar, supervisors
chairman of Decatur Township, where the facility is located. "I won't be
able to live with that." In a letter to the state attorney general in
2001, then- Superintendent Sam Peterson explained the grave situation facing
the Philipsburg-Osceola school district and how he thought the private prison
would help. At the time, concerns were raised about whether state law would
allow a private prison to be built, and the project was in jeopardy. "I
have seen our district student population drop by 1,000 since the late
1970s," Peterson wrote. "This is primarily due to the decline of
the coal industry and the loss of a couple of significant employers."
Based on company-driven estimates, the facility would bring $600,000 annually
in property taxes to the school district, he said. "I have lived in this
area for 26 years and can assure you that nothing of such magnitude has ever
presented itself as a viable economic option to the area's residents,"
he wrote. The attorney general allowed the project to move ahead. But it
wasn't the same project that was originally proposed. In the seven years that
had passed in resolving legal issues, the federal Bureau of Prisons changed
the scope of the project. The prison was supposed to comprise three
buildings. Now it has only one. And Cornell, Parker said, "lost all of
the business that would have come along from it." Private prisons sprung
up elsewhere, and "the needs of the federal Bureau of Prisons
changed," she said. So did the expected tax revenue. Last week,
Philipsburg-Osceola Area school officials said they did not receive any tax
payments from the prison. After digging further through their records, they
realized that they did receive about $51,000, which was based on a partial
assessment of the facility. Now the facility has been fully assessed at $2.5
million. And, at most, the district will receive $232,730 annually from it in
tax payments. "I would love to have it much higher, but I am very
restricted by what I can do," said Mary Ann Wesdock, director of the
Clearfield County Assessment Office. "I have to work within the
structure that we have with regard to our base year and the values that we are
permitted to use." Clearfield County's last reassessment was in 1989.
Rebar said he was sick to his stomach when he realized that the township
would receive only about $15,000 annually in tax revenues. "It is a drop
in the bucket," said Rebar, who expected about $60,000. "That is
our philosophy here." Morris Township, where the prison's water tower
sits, is also not satisfied. Cornell's chief operating officer, in a 1999
letter to the township, said its general contractor would make a
"one-time only investment in Morris Township of $250,000 upon the
township's endorsement of this facility." The letter also indicated that
the township would get an annual $191,734 payment in lieu of property taxes.
Troy Hill Road, near the prison, also was supposed to be paved by Cornell,
the letter indicated. Township Solicitor F. Cortez Bell III said the township
hasn't received anything. Although a prison building was not constructed in
Morris Township as planned, "there is a water tower." "The
supervisors have authorized me to take whatever action is necessary,"
said Bell, who also is a Clearfield County assistant district attorney.
"We have even talked about eminent domain proceedings." Morris
Township would have received payments, Parker said,
if the prison was constructed as originally planned.

January 10, 2007 Centre Daily TimesUncertain of what its financial situation is,
the Philipsburg-Osceola Area school board is trying to decide which way to
throw the dice as it develops next year's budget. And the one revenue source
the board hoped to get tax dollars from this year -- the newly constructed
private prison -- appears to have slipped between the cracks. The district
has not received a single tax payment from the prison so far, school
officials said Tuesday. The crux of the dilemma facing Philipsburg-Osceola is
that the board must have a preliminary budget drafted by Jan. 25. But school
officials, who just stepped into their positions a few months ago, say they
have no clue what all of their expenses are and don't want to rely on the
figures contained in the previous deficit-laden budget. The board could wait
until the end of the year to draft a complete budget, but then it must vow
not to raise taxes above the state-mandated limit of 4.9 percent. If the
district needed additional revenue, it would have to cut staff and programs
in order to pay for its expenses. "I don't want to do that," said
Cathy Hayes, a board member. On the other hand, if the board decided to
increase taxes more than 4.9 percent, its budget would need voter approval by
referendum. Several school officials doubted that they could win the
taxpayers' support. Nor are they sure the community could handle any more tax
increases. Last year, the board increased taxes 27 percent in Clearfield
County and 5 percent in Centre County. "I could not, in my best
judgment, ask to go over 4.9 percent. It would just be devastating,"
said Mike Conte, the school district's director of finance. "Whatever we
have to do, we have to keep within that range." The budget constraints,
including the tax-increase limit and early budget schedule, are all the
result of the state's latest property tax law, Act 1. The legislation
mandated a series of new budget changes for almost all school districts
across the state. The board was at odds over what to do by the end of its
meeting Tuesday night. It is expected to decide at its next meeting on
Tuesday. Board member Thad Ritter appeared to be supportive of drafting a
preliminary budget by next week. He said if the district had to raise taxes
above 4.9 percent, it would have to sell its case to the taxpayers and
explain what programs would be cut without the additional revenue. "I
think we need to submit the preliminary budget just in case we need the
referendum," he said. The board was hoping to receive some tax revenues
from the Moshannon Valley Correctional Facility. Earlier reports show that
the district expected at least a couple hundred thousand annually. The prison
is up and running, and Conte said the district has
not received any payments to date.

March 25, 2003
Ending a four-year standoff, a Texas corrections firm has won the go-ahead to
build Pennsylvania's first privately owned prison, officials said
Tuesday. The 1,000-bed prison for federal inmates, which will be built
by next year on reclaimed strip mines in Clearfield County, Pa., will be
maintained and operated by Houston-based Cornell Companies, Inc. Cornell owns eight other prisons nationwide. The
company was stalled in Pennsylvania since 1999 because state law does not
allow private firms to house federal prisoners. But a rare agreement,
finalized this week, will let Cornell guards use deadly force to control
prisoners - with authority delegated by the federal Bureau of Prisons.
No other prison in the state will be allowed to be owned by a private
company. (AP)

March
23, 2002
For more than two years, Pennsylvania's Attorney General Mike Fisher has
stood by his objections to Cornell Corrections' plans to build a private
prison in Clearfield County, saying that state law did not allow a
corporation to be a jailer. In an exclusive interview with the
Progress, Mr. Fisher said his office has formulated a plan that might
"satisfy everyone concerned." "What we're trying to do
is federalize the prison," Rep. Lynn Herman said yesterday, "it
will then be legal." Cornell, which would be the contracted
operator of the facility, would also own the property and the structure,
allowing the local tax-base to benefit. Not everyone sees the proposal
as good news, however. "It was Mr. Fisher who said that private
companies cannot own and operate prisons without the General Assembly's
authorization," said state Rep. Camile "Bud" George, D-74 of
Houtzdale, in a statement this week. "I can assure you that
authorization has not been given." He called the proposal a
"deal kept secret from the media, the citizens of Clearfield County and
legislators of all stripes," and said the issues has become "a
political animal rather than a question of what is right for the
people..." (Clearfield Progress)

The
federal government yesterday lifted a moratorium that helped put a two-year
freeze on what would be Pennsylvania's only privately owned prison.
That left developers suggesting that the Clearfield County project could go
to construction by spring. But they still face stiff opposition from
Gov. Tom Ridge and state Attorney General Mike Fisher. "Our
position has remained unchanged, that state law as currently written doesn't
allow incarceration of inmates by private entities," Fisher spokesman
Sean Connolly said yesterday. The federal government froze work in June
1999, when a locally based group, the Citizens Advisory Committee on Private
Prisons, filed a complaint charging that bureau hadn't done environmental
homework on the project. Wednesday, federal Judge D. Brooks Smith in
Johnstown ruled that all was well -- a decision that opponents are deciding
whether to appeal. (Post Gazette)

Monroe County
Correctional Facility
Monroe County, Pennsylvania
Canteen (formerly run by Aramark)
September 10, 2009 Pocono RecordA new company is serving meals to inmates and staff and the Monroe County
Correctional Facility. Canteen Correctional Services, a division of Compass
Group USA, has been doing the cooking since Sept. 1. Canteen was awarded a
three-year contract at $622,388 per year, replacing Aramark, which had been
employed at the Snydersville jail for five years. Staff members are happy
with the new menu and larger portions, says Acting Warden Donna Asure.
"We've gotten great comments," said Asure, who also is a county
commissioner. "The staff is satisfied with the staff meals." Four
Canteen employees, assisted by inmates who apply for positions, prepare about
1,200 meals daily in the prison kitchen. Inmates eat in the day rooms of
their assigned units. Staff members eat in the employee dining room. Aramark
was the subject of at least a few complaints before losing its bid for a
renewed contract. "We have had several complaints," Asure said.
"We tried to work things out." The county has options to extend
Canteen's contract beyond the current three years, she said.

Montgomery County
Jail
Eagleville, Pennsylvania
Correctional Medical CareOctober 04, 2013
courthousenews.com
(CN) - Prison medical staff must face claims that they let a detainee die
after ignoring her severe chest pain and bloody vomit so as to avoid paying
for her outside treatment, a federal judge ruled. Dorothy Kenney sued
Montgomery County, Pa.; Correctional Medical Care Inc. (CMC); and seven
prison medical staff members in federal court on behalf of the late Patricia
Pollock. Shortly after Pollock, then 25, allegedly
told her mother that she was severely nauseous on Sept. 22, 2011, Upper
Moreland Township police arrested her, and took her to the Montgomery County
Correctional Facility to await trial the next day. When Pollock told a prison
nurse that she was in pain, could not move her left arm, and had been taking
clonazepam, an anti-anxiety medication, for about two years, the nurse
recommended benzodiazepine-withdrawal treatment, Kenney said. Although
another nurse allegedly saw Pollock later that day "yelling in her cell
that she could not breathe" and "that her chest felt 'like
something [was] pressing all the way down to [her] back,'" Dr. Margaret
Carrillo refused to order outside treatment or testing, for which
Correctional Medical Care would have had to pay, the plaintiff continued.
Pollock, having complained for days, told a nurse that she had been vomiting
blood, had rib pain, and could not breathe, so Dr. Carrillo finally saw her
and ordered intravenous fluids, judging that she was a drug user susceptible
to bacterial endocarditis, Kenney said. A nurse allegedly found Pollock
"naked and wrapped in a sheet for most of the evening shift on the
medical unit" and unable "to drink fluids ... without the
assistance of her cellmate." The next morning, Pollock was sent to the
emergency room and diagnosed with massive organ failure due to bacterial
endocarditis, but her heart stopped during her airlift to another hospital
for immediate surgery, the plaintiff claimed. The complaint asserts claims
for state-law negligence, deliberate indifference, failure to train,
incentivizing staff to curb outside medical referrals and testing, and
wrongful death. The defendants moved to dismiss, and Senior U.S. District
Judge Jan DuBois partially denied the motions last week. "Dr. Carrillo
had been aware of Pollock's shortness of breath, severe chest pain, abnormal
echocardiogram, and deteriorating condition for at least 36 hours before she
personally saw Pollock for a diagnostic," DuBois wrote. "Further,
even when Pollock had deteriorated to the point where 'she had been vomiting
blood, that she was suffering from rib pain and weakness, and that she could
not breathe,' Dr. Carrillo continued the course of benzodiazepine-withdrawal
treatment and did not conduct further diagnostic testing. "It was not
until Sept. 27, 2013, when Pollock was experiencing massive organ failure and
required emergency surgery, that Dr. Carrillo referred her to the emergency
room," DuBois continued. "Plaintiff further alleges that Dr.
Carrillo did not make these decisions with regard to the serious risk to
Pollock's health, but rather because she was financially motivated not to
order diagnostic testing and/or refer patients for outside treatment.
"These allegations are sufficient to state a claim of deliberate
indifference against Dr. Carrillo," the judge ruled. Though the court
tossed aside Nurse Mary Rhinehart's argument that that Dr. Carrillo was
solely responsible for Pollock's care, it dismissed the civil rights claims
against Christine Irvine R.N., whose involvement in Pollock's care is not
detailed in the complaint. Pollock's administratrix may amend her complaint
within 20 days, the ruling states. When Pollock was arrested, she had been unable
to pay 10 percent of her $10,000 bail for retail theft, possession of drug
paraphernalia, and DUI charges, a Philadelphia online newspaper, Newsworks,
reported.

Jun 5, 2013 nbcphiladelphia.com

Patricia Pollock lay dying from a
heart condition in the Montgomery County prison, so weak she couldn't drink
liquids without help and so distressed she stripped off all her clothes. But
somehow, a private contractor failed to catch or treat Pollock's illness,
which made breathing a struggle, caused her organs to fail, and eventually
took her life. Or at least, that's the claim of civil-rights attorney
Jonathan Feinberg. He is representing Pollock's estate, which filed a lawsuit
against Montgomery County and Correctional Medical Care, a company hired to
provide medical services to the prison. The suit, filed in the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania in May, claims that CMC's care was so poor that
Pollock's constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment
was violated. This isn't the first time that CMC, based in Blue Bell, Pa.,
has been in the news. In April, New York's Attorney General office said it
was investigating the company, which has also operated in that state. Before
then, New York's Commission of Correction found wrongdoing by the company in
the deaths of some inmates. An attorney for CMC said the company provides
quality care. The cause of Pollock's 2011 death, an autopsy report shows, was
a heart condition known as "acute fulminant verrucous
endocarditis." According to the suit, CMC treated Pollock for drug
withdrawal instead, and by the time she was transferred to an outside
hospital and received diagnostic testing, it was too late. Pollock was 25, in
the Montgomery County Correctional Facility awaiting trial because she was
unable to pay 10 percent of her $10,000 bail. She faced charges for alleged
retail theft, possession of drug paraphernalia and a DUI. Feinberg, of the
law firm Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg, said CMC knew that Pollock
had a history of using intravenous drugs. So it should have been able to
diagnose her heart condition, as it often afflicts such users, he said.
"This is a condition that, if treated properly, should not result in
death," Feinberg said. "The fact that she ended up dead obviously
shows that there was a very significant breakdown in the way care was
provided." Timothy Myers, an attorney for CMC, said the company's job is
difficult because inmates often come into prison with serious medical
problems. And in this case, Myers said it was even tougher because Pollock
initially denied her drug use. "So it makes it harder to diagnose
problems when the patient is not honest," he said, adding that it's
"just not feasible" to "evaluate and inspect ... every inch of
an inmate's body in order to make some kind of diagnosis preliminarily."
CMC was paid about $4 million annually for its work in Montgomery County.
Trouble in New York, too. Critics of the company say it has a pattern of
being at least partially at fault in the deaths of prisoners. New York's Commission
of Correction, which examines inmates' deaths, found that CMC has sometimes
failed to follow its own regulations and put prisoners in danger over the
last few years. A Correctional Medical Care nurse "clearly left his
patient in an emergent life-threatening status without appropriate medical
attention," one commission report noted. Another report stated that the
death of 60-year-old inmate Joaquin Rodriguez "may have been prevented
had he received timely medical care and received proper supervision"
from CMC. The commission said the Monroe County jail should terminate its
contract with the company as a result. CMC did not respond to several
requests for comment on the commission reports or the New York Attorney
General's investigation. The Attorney General's office would not explain why
it is scrutinizing CMC, but it did request a copy of Pollock's lawsuit.
Prisoners' rights advocates say that private correctional companies, such as
CMC, put profits before people. Feinberg alleges that CMC faced a "powerful
financial disincentive" to conduct diagnostic testing on inmates or send
them to an outside medical provider. "The fact that those two things
cost money, that they're expensive and that those have to be paid for by this
private health provider, do raise serious questions," he said. Myers
said that the belief that CMC has such a disincentive "is utterly and
completely false." Montgomery County spokesman Frank Custer declined to
comment on the suit, explaining that the county's attorneys "would not
presume to comment on the case since we will not be defending it." Dr.
Margaret Carrillo, CMC's medical director at the time of Pollock's death, is
also named in the suit. She, too, took a pass on commenting. New contract,
CMC is no longer providing medical services for the Montgomery County
Correctional Facility. Since 2012, PrimeCare Medical, Inc. has done that job.
Custer would not provide details about the county's decision to switch
contractors. Though CMC is based in Pennsylvania, it does not currently
provide medical services for any prisons or jails in the state, according to
its website. That's not for lack of trying, though. CMC placed a bid to
provide inmate health care in Philadelphia starting this year, but failed.
The company continues to work inside several New York county jails. And some
of CMC's old staff is working for PrimeCare in the Montgomery County
Correctional Facility, including its former medical director, Dr. Carrillo.

March
20, 2010 Democrat & ChronicleDuring the past decade the family that now manages medical care for
Monroe County jails has been entangled in lawsuits with claims ranging from
significant misappropriation of company funds to unusual contentions that
marital infidelity led to a private investigator bugging their house. Emre Umar,
the president of Correctional Medical Care Inc., is now accused in a local
lawsuit of harassing and ultimately firing a jail medical employee, April
D'Amico of Rochester, who alleges she had an affair with Umar. D'Amico
alleges that Umar assured her "that she was a valuable employee; that he
would always take care of her; and, that if she ever tried to use their
relationship against him that he 'would destroy' her." When D'Amico
wanted to end the relationship, Umar proceeded to call her dozens of times,
constantly harassing her before finally firing her, alleges the lawsuit,
filed this month in U.S. District Court in Rochester. Timothy Myers, a
Pennsylvania-based attorney representing Umar and his company, said the
allegations "are baseless." The attorneys are seeking dismissal of
the lawsuit and allege that D'Amico cost Correctional Medical Care
"hundreds of thousands of dollars" through "misconduct."
Despite the legal issues for Correctional Medical Care, there have not been
any concerns raised about the medical care the company provides. In
isolation, D'Amico's federal lawsuit may not raise questions about the
management of CMC. But Umar and his wife, Maria, the company's chief
executive officer, have been involved in another unusual lawsuit, in which the
couple alleged they were harassed by a Chicago businessman and his contracted
private investigator after Maria broke off a seven-year relationship with the
businessman. And Emre Umar and his father, Dr. Kenan Umar, were embroiled in
litigation against each other after the sale of a previous prison health care
provider the two managed and owned, court records
from Pennsylvania show. The father and son accused each other of harming the
company through unauthorized personal use of its revenues. Reached Tuesday at
his office near Philadelphia, Emre Umar declined to comment about his current
or past litigation. He did say the company is providing quality medical care
for Monroe County's two jail facilities. Sheriff's Office spokesman John
Helfer also said CMC is providing good care to inmates. He noted that CMC is
accredited by a national agency. "We have found they either meet or
exceed those (accreditation) standards," Helfer said. Privatized jail
care -- The county privatized jail medical services about a decade ago but
has struggled to settle on a company to provide quality, cost-effective care.
The first company hired was Prison Health Services, but the county stopped
contracting with PHS in 2003 in the aftermath of an inmate death in which the
state was sharply critical of care. The county then contracted with
Correctional Medical Services into 2008. The county is now suing CMS,
alleging that the company did not provide staffing at the jails as
contractually promised. CMS has denied the allegations. In 2008, the county
began its contract with Correctional Medical Care, the Umar-run company. The
County Legislature unanimously approved the CMC contract. The county contends
that CMC was the best choice among five providers that answered a request for
proposal — or RFP. Asked whether any information about past lawsuits
involving Umar came to light during the county's due diligence, county
spokesman Noah Lebowitz responded in an e-mail: "It doesn't appear so
based on the information in the RFP file." The key issues for county
officials were a company's "proposed fees; understanding of the project;
degree of relevant experience; technical competence; references; capacity and
availability to perform the services; and local office," Lebowitz wrote.
County officials believe that privatized health care, like that provided by
CMC, is "the best way to ensure quality services at a fair cost for
taxpayers," Lebowitz wrote. The Umars have experience managing a major
prison health care provider — Correctional Physician Services Inc., which
provided care in Pennsylvania state prisons and elsewhere. CPS was created in
1989 by Dr. Kenan Umar, who later employed his son, Emre, and made him a vice
president, court records show. In 1999, Dr. Umar alleged that his son removed
all of the CPS money from a bank account — more than $1 million — without
permission. Emre Umar contended he was entitled to the money, and the two
negotiated a settlement agreement. Not long thereafter, in March 2000, they
sold the company to Prison Health Services for $14 million. At that point,
the company was significantly in debt and much of the sale proceeds were used
to pay major creditors. More father-son lawsuits ensued with various charges
and counter-charges, but the litigation was apparently resolved with
settlements, according to court records and attorneys. More lawsuits -- The
Umars opened Correctional Medical Care in 2001, Pennsylvania corporate
records indicate. Between 2000 and 2007, according to a federal lawsuit,
Maria Umar had a "personal relationship" with a Chicago
businessman, Douglas Gray. In his response, Gray called the relationship
"extra-marital." The lawsuit alleges that Gray and his wife
harassed the Umars after the end of the relationship. In fact, the lawsuit,
filed by Correctional Medical Care and Emre and Maria Umar alleged, Gray
hired a private investigator to run a background check on Emre Umar. The
couple alleged that the investigator also surveilled the Umars,
"including eavesdropping through surreptitious electronic devices that
they planted" in the Umars' home. The lawsuit was settled out of court.
Court records show the case was dismissed after settlement in 2008. D'Amico's
local lawsuit against Umar was filed earlier this month in U.S. District
Court. According to her lawsuit, she was hired as health services
administrator for the Monroe County Jail in March 2008. Emre Umar was her
supervisor and constantly pushed her for personal information, she alleges.
She acknowledged an affair beginning in September 2008. When she tried to end
the relationship, she claims, Umar harassed her constantly through phone
calls. D'Amico said she was fired on Feb. 1, 2009. D'Amico "is a
disgruntled employee who was discharged for very good cause," said
Umar's attorney, Myers. In court filings, CMC maintains that D'Amico caused
the company "to be assessed hundreds of thousands of dollars"
because of noncompliance with Monroe County contractual requirements. County
officials say there were "considerable financial penalties" assessed
against the company for not meeting agreed-to staffing levels. D'Amico's
attorney, Christopher Enos, declined to comment.

May
27, 2005 The Morning Call
The Montgomery County district attorney's office is investigating whether the
extension of a $3.15 million contract for inmate medical services at the
county prison in Eagleville was improper. District Attorney Bruce L. Castor
Jr. said Thursday that acting Prison Warden Julio Algarin asked him to probe
a one-year contract extension with Correctional Medical Care, based in Skippack,
but declined to comment on any specific allegations that prompted the
investigation. ''The letter from Mr. Algarin said there had been allegations raised that the [prison] board engaged in some kind of
impropriety surrounding the medical contract,'' Castor said. ''He asked us to
look into whether that was true or not.'' Richard Winters, the prison board's
solicitor, said some members of the public have raised concerns that the
contract was extended because ''someone received something in exchange for
that recommendation.''

National Park
Services
Philidelphia, Pennsylvania
Wackenhut (Group 4)
September 13, 2007 APPrivate security guards who have protested what they call poor working
conditions at Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell voted Wednesday to
unionize. The Wackenhut Services Inc. workers voted 31-2 to join the Service
Employees International Union Local 32BJ, district organizing coordinator
Jeff Hornstein said. Fifteen guards did not vote. The secret ballot election
was held at a community hall a few blocks from Independence National
Historical Park, which is also protected by the National Park Service.
Wackenhut did not respond to two previous attempts by workers to gain
recognition, Hornstein said. Marc Shapiro, senior vice president at Florida-based
Wackenhut, said in order for the balloting to be valid, it must follow
standards set by the National Labor Relations Board. "If it is an
election that is sanctioned by the NLRB, we would certainly support it,"
Shapiro said. The voting followed a meeting during which two employees spoke
of low wages, unpaid sick days, no health insurance, and spending their own
money to winterize their uniforms. "We have to make sure we stay
warm," guard Lamontez Bentley said. "We simply cannot afford to get
sick." The meeting was attended by U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, D-Pa., who
promised to ensure that the company improves conditions for workers
"protecting our national treasures." "I'm going to put their
feet to the fire for sure," Brady said. Hornstein asked Brady to work in
Congress to withhold contracts from Wackenhut, which the government has hired
to protect sites including nuclear weapons facilities and the Department of
Homeland Security complex. Wackenhut, which has more than 35,000 employees,
is owned by U.K.-based G4S.

New Morgan Academy
Morgantown, Pennsylvania
Cornell
June 15, 2010 Reading Eagle
The weekend melee at Abraxas Academy in which five residents attacked eight
counselors was the first major incident at the treatment center for juvenile
offenders in New Morgan since it reopened in October 2006, police said
Monday. Caernarvon Township Police Chief Paul R. Stolz Jr. said the melee
Sunday also was the first in which officers had to remove juveniles from the
facility since his department took over coverage of the borough from state
police on April 1. Information on calls before April 1 was not immediately
available from state police. But Stolz said state police had told him they
had not had a lot of calls to the facility, which originally opened in 2000.
In Sunday's melee, five juveniles from Philadelphia were charged with
assaulting counselors. An 18-year-old was taken to county prison. The other
four are in the county youth center. Some counselors had broken bones and
other injuries, but none of the injuries was life-threatening, police said.
Stolz said his department also handled two assaults at Abraxas in April. In
one, a resident was charged with assaulting a staff member. In the other, a
juvenile was charged with assaulting another juvenile. Both of those accused
remained at the academy while their cases were handled in juvenile court, he
said. The only other call was last week when police helped an ambulance crew
remove a juvenile who was having mental health problems, Stolz said.

July
14, 2009 Reading EagleThe state Department of Public Welfare has suspended admissions to
Abraxas Academy in New Morgan while it investigates why the boys detention center failed to report suspected abuse in
a timely manner. This marks the third time in 2009 that the state has
temporarily closed admissions to Abraxas, welfare department spokeswoman
Stacey L. Witalec said Monday. Witalec refused to give specifics about the
most recent abuse allegation, citing confidentiality requirements. "We
continue to have concerns about the facility to maintain health and safety
for the kids," Witalec said. "If they continue to correct
deficiencies, then it's planned for admissions to reopen in two weeks."
The juvenile detention center off Interstate 176 is licensed to take as many
as 82 boys ages 12 to 18 years old. The boys have committed offenses that
require a secure lockup, such as aggravated assault or armed robbery. They
usually are not first-time offenders. Admissions to the academy were closed
Feb. 4 to Feb. 25 because the state was concerned about a lack of supervision
at the facility, Witalec said. They were suspended again April 27 to June 15
over the untimely reporting of suspected abuse. Jon Swatsburg, senior vice
president at Abraxas Youth and Family Services, said the April suspension and
the most recent one, July 7, stemmed from the same incident. He said a
teenage boy had broken off a wooden bed slat and was prepared to use it as a
weapon against a staff member. While the boy was being restrained, he
received a minor injury to his eye, Swatsburg said. The boy was immediately
treated by a nurse, and while the incident went into the boy's medical file,
it wasn't included in a report to the state, Swatsburg said. Swatsburg called
it a communications gap and said he understands why the welfare department
was concerned. Abraxas, a division of Cornell Cos. of Houston, initially
opened in New Morgan in 2000 but relinquished its license two years later
after six escapes and several reports of sexual assaults, most involving employees
abusing clients, according to the state. The facility reopened in 2006 with
new management and staff. "We did a poor job in the initial operations
of the facility," Swatsburg said Monday. "All eyes are going to be
on us, and it's going to take a long time for that to go away." Witalec
said the state has substantiated five cases of abuse at the facility since it
reopened. The state has stepped up regular and unannounced visits to the
center, she added.

November
17, 2006 Reading Eagle
Lawyers for New Morgan borough on Friday asked a federal judge in Reading to
dismiss a suit filed by the owner of New Morgan Academy juvenile treatment
center, claiming the academy is trying to sidestep local zoning ordinances
and state courts. Cornell Cos. Inc., Houston, has sued the borough and its
council members, claiming they violated Cornell's constitutional rights by
interfering with its plans to reopen the academy. The original facility had
closed in October 2002, two years after opening, after a series of escapes and
sexual assaults. In July, the borough adopted a zoning amendment forbidding
the operation of a detention facility. The borough then sent letters to the
state departments of welfare and education alerting them that Cornell
intended to operate what the borough called a detention center. At the time,
Cornell was seeking a state license to reopen. It subsequently got the
license and reopened with 16 beds in October. It is treating two, low-level
sex offenders from Philadelphia. But borough attorney Mark Himsworth told
U.S. District Judge Lawrence F. Stengel, who was presiding in The Madison,
that Cornell had never sought an occupancy permit or zoning approval from the
borough, and needs to do that first. If occupancy was denied, he said, the
legitimate process would be to challenge the denial to borough council and
possibly in state court before considering a federal suit. And Thomas P.
Hogan, attorney for the council members, said Cornell had not met federal law
by not specifying what the individuals had done, and that they were given
immunity from lawsuits by three separate state laws. Council members named in
the suit are Dena L. Geunes, Tressie Marroon, Richard Venezia and Robert G.
Williams. Borough Manager Carolyn Williams is also named. Cornell attorney Antoinette
R. Stone told Stengel that Cornell knew it would be denied zoning and
occupancy because of what she called the borough's long history of unlawful
conduct against Cornell. She said the law doesn't require an effort in
futility. Stengel indicated he would rule in early December, but briefly
sparred with Stone over what the academy really is. “It's a juvenile prison,
isn't it?” Stengel asked, noting that for years as a Lancaster County judge
he had sent juvenile offenders to such facilities. Stone said it wasn't, but
it was a secure boarding school operating exactly the same as the previous
facility. Stengel asked whether it has locks. Stone said it does, but said
that under state definitions it's not a detention center. She said Cornell
has never had or sought a license for a detention facility in New Morgan and
has never operated one.

November
17, 2006 Reading EagleThe Texas-based owner of a New Morgan treatment facility for juvenile
offenders has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the borough of interfering
with the facility's plans to reopen. Cornell Cos. Inc., Houston, initially
opened the 214-bed Cornell Abraxas Academy in October 2000, just north of the
Conestoga landfill in New Morgan. The facility closed Oct. 27, 2002,
following a half-dozen escapes and 14 sexual
assaults. But it reopened last month, with 16 beds available to low-level sex
offenders. So far, two sex offenders from Philadelphia are being housed for
treatment, officials said. Antoinette R. Stone, a Philadelphia lawyer
representing Cornell Cos., said the reopening would not affect the lawsuit.
The suit requests a court order to allow the facility to remain open and the
borough to pay unspecified damages. Lawyers representing the borough and its
council members have asked that the case, before U.S. District Judge Lawrence
F. Stengel, be dismissed. Stone charged in the suit that the borough
interfered with Cornell's efforts to obtain a state license to reopen.
“Instead of contacting Cornell to discuss concerns, the defendants continue their
interference with Cornell's efforts to reopen,” Stone wrote. “The defendants'
unlawful and unjustified actions constitute a gross and shocking abuse of
government authority undertaken for the purpose of preventing Cornell from
resuming operations at New Morgan as a lawful secure care facility for
juvenile offenders.” In July, the borough amended its ordinance to forbid a
secure detention facility from operating in New Morgan, according to Stone.
Stone said in the suit that the academy is not a detention facility, but a
school for juvenile offenders. Hogan said Cornell has not even applied to the
borough for a use and occupancy permit as required by law. “Cornell has not
even taken the first step, which is to address the zoning issues,” Hogan
said.

November
9, 2006 Reading Eagle
The Cornell Abraxas Academy, a former juvenile-detention center in New Morgan
that closed in October 2002, has reopened with two teenage sex offenders from
Philadelphia County. “We're a secure boarding school for low-level offenders,”
Gregory Swatsburg, assistant facility director, said Wednesday. Plans call
for accepting one youth each week until all 16 beds for which the state
currently licenses it are filled, he said. “These kids have crossed the line
but they're not violent or hard-core sex offenders,” he said. The 14- to
18-year-olds are being enrolled in a treatment program that can last nine to
12 months, he said. The 214-bed facility just north of the Conestoga Landfill
opened in October 2000 with an emphasis on treating and educating the state's
worst juvenile offenders. The center shut down after a half-dozen
escapes and 14 sexual assaults on inmates, most committed by staff members.

January
29, 2006 AP
A private-prison firm hopes to regain its license to run a detention center
for serious juvenile offenders in Berks County. The state closed the New
Morgan Academy in 2002, after just two years of operation, because of a
series of escapes, sexual assaults on residents and other problems. The
Cornell Companies, which calls itself the nation's third-largest private
correctional firm, had said as late as December it wanted to reopen the
campus as a boarding school for emotionally troubled youths. But the
Houston-based company has since decided to apply to run a detention center for
the most serious juvenile offenders from around the country. Some local
officials are disturbed by the company's revised plan, which they said was
announced without their input. "All they had been talking about for all
these years seems to have taken a rather dramatic turn," said state Rep.
Samuel E. Rohrer, a Robeson Township Republican.

November
10, 2005 Reading Eagle
A former juvenile-detention center in New Morgan that was closed in 2002
after escapes and abuse of inmates by staff is expected to reopen late next
year as a school for emotionally troubled young people, officials said
Wednesday. Cornell Cos. Inc., Houston, parent company of Cornell-Abraxis,
which owns New Morgan Academy, plans to turn the facility into a day school
and boarding school for emotionally troubled people up to age 21, Cornell
officials said. Cornell would retain ownership of the 214-bed facility on 55
acres just north of the Conestoga Landfill, according to Chuck McLister,
divisional director for Cornell. McLister said the firm is in negotiations
with the state and hopes to have an operating permit in time to open in
September. New Morgan Academy opened in October 2000 with an emphasis on
treating and educating the state's worst juvenile offenders. Between July
2001 and April 2002, there were 14 substantiated sexual assaults on inmates,
all but one or two committed by staff members, according to the state
Department of Public Welfare. Two escapes also occurred at the facility,
which was closed in October 2002 and put up for sale with a $25 million price
tag. "At the end of the day we couldn't put a package together that met
everyone's needs," said Paul B. Doucette, a Cornell spokesman. "It
is a very expensive asset and it's just sitting there empty, and that is not
a good thing for a business asset to do." Kathy Brill, whose Chestnut
Hill Road home in Caernarvon Township is about a half-mile from the site,
plans to reserve judgment until details are finalized. "If these are
kids who are allowed to walk freely and go home when they want, then that is
one story," Brill said. "If it is more of the same, then obviously
we are going to be upset. "They have
demonstrated they can't keep them in."

March
7, 2003
Berks and several other counties have interest in turning the vacant New
Morgan Academy into a regional facility for prison inmates with special
needs. Those prisoners could include women or perhaps inmates with mental
problems. The center shut down in October following a series of sexual
and physical assaults of juveniles. The site is owned by Cornell
Abraxas, a subsidiary of Cornell Companies Inc., Houston. Sources
estimate the sale price would be at least $20 million. Paul B.
Doucette, director of public affairs for Cornell, said the company would keep
its options open regarding New Morgan Academy. “We are in talks with a
variety of different prospects, some of whom are interested in buying or
leasing it for different purposes,” Doucette said. “We haven't ruled out
anything.” “We'd like to do something with it as soon as possible,” he
said. “Right now it represents a cost to us, and we aren't producing any
revenue.” Kathy J. Brill, who lives on Chestnut Hill Road about a
half-mile from New Morgan Academy, was shocked to hear of the interest being
shown by Berks and other counties. Brill, a longtime critic of the
juvenile center, thought that the academy would be vacant for a number of
years because of its high asking price. “Right now I am sick to my
stomach,” she said after hearing of the county plan. “This is ridiculous.
Put the knife in and turn it one more time.” (Reading Eagle)

January
24, 2003Cornell Companies Inc. (NYSE:CRN -
News), which builds and operates prisons, said on Friday it was exploring all
options for a youth center, which was closed last year.The closure of the facility, New Morgan
Academy, will result in a 25-cent-per-share charge against the company's 2002
earnings, it said in a statement. (Yahoo finance)

November
3, 2002Two years ago, the privately owned New
Morgan Academy, combining high

security and intense therapy,
opened its doors as Pennsylvania's newest

alternative for
handling delinquent teens with mental illness.

But last week, the Berks County center shut down following the

Conviction of two staff members on criminal charges and what one
juvenile justice official called "an unheard of" number of physical
and sexual assault allegations over the past two years.The problem facing the counties now is the
same one that caused them to send teens to New Morgan in the first place -- a
shortage of residential facilities that will accept teens who run away, are
unpredictably violent and sometimes suicidal.State officials say there were 31 separate substantiated reports of
abuse against teen residents during New Morgan Academy's two years of operation.Sixteen cases involved sexual abuse,
including the assault of a 15-year-old McKeesport girl in June by a staff
member. In some cases, the assaults included sexual intercourse between an
adult staff member and a teenage resident.New Morgan was run by Cornell Companies of Houston, which operates
private prisons and other facilities around the nation.While declining to discuss specifics of
individual cases, state officials said none of the 15 acts of physical abuse
resulted in broken bones or a resident's hospitalization.As they relinquished New Morgan's license,
Cornell officials acknowledged there were too many abuse incidents."Those are bad numbers. We're not backing
off from that," said Bill Cammarata, who is director of operations for
Cornell's eastern region.When New
Morgan opened, it overestimated how many qualified workers it could find, and
underestimated how much statewide demand there would be for a program like
theirs, said Jack Godlesky, Cornell's eastern region vice president.The financial difficulties stemmed from the
state's reluctance to grant Cornell, or any other center, designation as a
secure residential treatment facility -- a locked facility focused on
behavioral health treatment. State officials at the time said such facilities
as New Morgan were too much like jails and not enough like treatment centers
to get the designation.Without the
designation, counties could not seek Medicaid reimbursement to offset the
$260 to $280 per day cost to house each youth. Because of the cost,
Philadelphia -- which at one point accounted for nearly half the 200
residents there -- stopped sending teens to New Morgan in January.But the larger and ultimately unconquerable
problem proved to be filling out its staff with people who would not end up
abusing residents.The staffing
problems persisted, though, despite raising starting salaries "several
times," Godlesky said. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

September
29, 2002Two Western Pennsylvania girls, one from
Murrysville and one from

McKeesport,

were sexually
molested by staff members while living in group homes. And

both

say that earlier in their placements, they were physically hurt in

altercations

with staff.

Such injuries in group homes are rare, according to the State
Department

of

Public Welfare statistics

Ronald
Davidson, a clinical psychologist who has investigated 175 homes

in
a

dozen states in the past eight years for Illinois, says the
figure "doesn't

pass

the sniff test. That
stinks. Right away my BS meter goes into the red zone.

I

would recommend that an outside organization take
a very close look at the

agency saying that."

He concedes that children may exaggerate, but, just as often, he
said,

they

don't report what has happened to them.

The McKeesport girl who was sexually
assaulted at New Morgan Academy

said

that was her
experience. She said she saw staff members improperly touch

several

girls who didn't report it, and she knows of another girl who was
molested

and

refused to tell.

New Morgan officials said they investigated every allegation they

received.

The
McKeesport girl said she doesn't know why some girls don't tell, but

what
happened to her when she told may be revealing. She says when she

reported

the physical assault to her probation officer, he didn't believe her
story.

She

said the staff member
told the probation officer a different story. "It was

their
word against ours, and other staff would back them up," she said.

And when she reported the sexual assault, no one believed her
initially

either, and she was subjected to taunts from staff
members and girls. New

Morgan

officials denied that
staff mistreated the girl.

In
addition, the McKeesport girl's clinician at New Morgan ordered her

to

keep quiet about the sexual assault during a review of her case by an

Allegheny

County judge. The girl tried to tell the judge
anyway, but the clinician

cut

her

off.

The girl said it wasn't as tough at
other places where she'd stayed,

such

as

Mars
Home for Youth and Bethesda Children's Home in Meadville, but she said

of

New Morgan, "That program was dirty." (Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette)

September
28, 2002A private juvenile detention center
opened two years ago to treat the

state's

worst
youth offenders will close in the wake of sexual and physical abuse

cases

involving staff members, officials said.

The 214-bed New Morgan Academy opened outside of Morgantown
Sept. 29,

2000,

espousing a philosophy of
"treating troubled youth with dignity and

respect"

but

lost its state license due to the cases.

"We have had a series of people who not only failed to
abide by (company)

policy, but failed to abide by state law and
common decency," said Paul B.

September
25, 2001
Five escaped youths from New Morgan Academy were captured Monday, and
officials at the youth detention facility plan to keep the teens confined to
their rooms until an investigation is completed. State police continued
an investigation into the Sunday night escape of the five youths, who crawled
through a large hole that had been cut in a chain-link fence. (AP)

September
24, 2001
Five teen-age boys serving time at a juvenile detention center in Berks
County have escaped and two of them remained at-large hours later. The
escapes Sunday evening came less than two months after officials of New
Morgan Academy promised to neighbors that improved security would prevent
further breakouts. The boys escaped through a hole in a fence. On
June 10, a 15-year-old Philadelphia boy escaped from New Morgan and was
caught a short time later. In August, academy officials held a meeting
with neighbors and told them that several measures had been taken to prevent
such future escapes. (AP)

December
20 ,2000
A private company that operates prisons say it cannot find enough workers for
its newest lockup in Morgantown, Berks County, a company official said. About
100 jobs remain unfilled at Cornell Corrections Inc.'s New Morgan Academy, a
juvenile jail that opened Oct. 2. It has room for 214 youths. (Feb. 15, 2001)

Northampton County
GEO GroupOctober
19, 2011 The Morning Call
Republican Ron Angle touted his record and experience while Democrat Scott
Parsons said he would bring "civility" back to Northampton County
Council, during a Slate Belt Chamber of Commerce-sponsored debate. About 80
people filled Wind Gap Fire Hall Tuesday night to hear borough Council
President Parsons, take on Angle, the firebrand three-term county council
incumbent. Most of the 20 questions submitted by the audience and chamber
officials focused on taxes and the 9 percent tax increase proposed by
Executive John Stoffa. Angle has yet to reveal how he'll cut spending in the
2012 budget; council is scheduled to consider amendments at the end of
November. "Am I tough to serve with?" Angle said. "I'm
probably very tough to serve with, because frankly your dollars are very
important to you. When government takes your dollars they owe you a complete
explanation." Parsons said he wasn't familiar enough with the county
budget to take a stand on Stoffa's tax increase. Instead he said council has
ignored $20 million in improvements to Gracedale nursing home. Angle said he
favored addressing capital needs a decade ago when then
Democratically-controlled council floated $110 million in bonds. He noted
taxes have doubled in Wind Gap since Parsons took office. Parsons said the
borough, facing reduced property tax revenue, raised taxes to increase
services and staff. "When you pay your tax bill as long as you're
getting a good return on what you're paying, you're happy," he said.
"You can't just be cutting everything and have nothing in return."
Asked why voters should choose him over Angle, Parsons said Angle's often
gruff demeanor impedes council from getting things done. "I would be
civil," Parsons said. "I would listen to everybody's concerns. I
wouldn't be name-calling, political back stabbing. You have to work
together." Angle said he recently struck a deal with Charles Chrin of
Chrin Bros. Sanitary Landfill that will net the county $2 million over five
years and pointed to the leadership role he took last year in reworking the
current county budget. "Many days I'm very civil," Angle said,
"but when I have to get tough, I can get very tough." Turning to
campaign financing, Angle defended his acceptance of a $3,000 donation from a
political action committee for the GEO Group Inc., an operator of private
detention centers. The check came days after Angle urged council to pave the
way for a GEO-run facility in Upper Mount Bethel Township.

February
16, 2011 Trading Markets
Ron Angle, as Northampton County Council president, received a $3,000
campaign contribution from a company seeking a deal with the county to build
a detention center and house illegal immigrants in the Slate Belt. The
political action committee for the GEO Group Inc. made the payment in
October, days after Angle urged colleagues on County Council to act quickly
and authorize County Executive John Stoffa to explore the company's proposal.
Asked Monday about the contribution, Angle said he told representatives of
the company that he wouldn't support the project if Slate Belt residents
didn't like it. Angle eventually did lead council to back away from the deal.
"They didn't buy any influence," Angle said of the GEO PAC's
contribution. "They bought my disinfluence." Angle disclosed the
check as required in a publicly available campaign finance report he filed
with the state. His campaign raised less than $5,000 during the period. Under
the deal proposed by the Florida-based GEO Group, Northampton County would
seek a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to house people
who are in the U.S. illegally. The county would then subcontract the work to
GEO, which operates more than 40 prisons in the U.S. and abroad. Supporters
of the project, who early on included Angle, touted it as a way to bring new
tax revenue to the Bangor Area School District without attracting new
students. Slate Belt leaders said it would also bring sorely needed jobs to
the area. Local residents, however, did not see the project as a good
neighbor. Angle said he spent $680 of the GEO group's campaign money to poll
Slate Belt residents. He said he asked how they felt about having the detention
center on a 128-acre tract south of the Portland Industrial Park in Upper
Mount Bethel Township. Based on negative feedback from the poll, Angle
persuaded council in November to rescind its call for Stoffa to start talks
with ICE about a month after it gave the go-ahead. Essex County, N.J., is
reportedly now in line to get the contract with ICE. Angle is the only
Northampton County Council member who received money from the GEO Group in
2010, according to campaign finance records. Angle then was council president
and now serves on council. His district includes the Slate Belt. Christopher
Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown,
said it's not unusual for elected officials to accept campaign money from
companies doing business with the government. "This kind of relationship
makes good campaign fodder," Borick said. Angle, a Republican, is
running for re-election this year. Council President John Cusick said in an
interview he was not aware of the GEO Group's PAC contribution to Angle. He
said he finds the amount and timing troubling considering Angle's rush to put
the resolution authorizing talks with ICE on council's agenda.

Northhampton County
Prison
Easton, Pennsylvania
AramarkPrimeCareJanuary 2, 2006 The Morning Call
Because of a lack of medical treatment, Trent Apple claims his multiple
sclerosis deteriorated so much he had trouble walking. Yahteek Miles says his
broken wrists went untreated for nearly two months, causing permanent
problems with his hands. And the family of Donald Weiss Jr. alleges he killed
himself after mental health experts failed to provide adequate psychiatric
care. Each of these individuals served time at a county prison where a
private business provided medical services. And each of them has had a
federal civil rights lawsuit filed on his behalf, alleging the business
failed to provide sufficient medical care in an effort to save money. Across
the nation, prison health care companies have come under increased scrutiny,
with prison watchdogs questioning whether the profit motive has harmed the
quality of prison health care. Prisons that have hired private medical
companies generally have done so because of the promised financial savings
for taxpayers. ''If they're doing it cheaper, it's usually because they're
cutting something, and those cuts have consequences for the quality of
care,'' said David Fathi, an attorney with the National Prison Project of the
American Civil Liberties Union. Locally, PrimeCare Medical Inc., based in
Harrisburg, provides services at four prisons - in Lehigh, Northampton, Berks
and Monroe counties. Schuylkill County is considering hiring it. Inmates have
filed dozens of suits against PrimeCare, which serves 22 county prisons in
Pennsylvania. In Northampton County, at least 16 suits have been filed
against the company since it started providing services there in 1999, the
most against any local prison served by PrimeCare. Traditionally a litigious group, inmates often file handwritten suits on
a variety of issues that end up being dismissed as frivolous. But in
Northampton County, many of the suits against PrimeCare involve prisoners
with private attorneys. And many of their cases have been given court
approval to move forward. One of the more significant Northampton County cases
involved a seriously ill inmate who reached a $150,000 settlement in 2003
with the county and PrimeCare. It alleged that PrimeCare failed to fill
prescriptions and gave incorrect prescriptions and that the prison delayed
access to medical care. PrimeCare has been an improvement over Wexford Health
Sources Inc., which provided medical care at the Lehigh County Prison until
2004, Sweeney said. PrimeCare is better partly because it's more oriented
toward county jails than Wexford, he said. Inmates have shorter stays in
county jails than those in state prisons, so their medical needs are
different. But the owner and president of PrimeCare, Carl A. Hoffman Jr., has a questionable medical record. In 1997, the
Pennsylvania Board of Osteopathic Medicine disciplined him. It issued a
formal reprimand and fined him $500. At the time, Hoffman owned Pennsylvania
Institutional Health Services, the predecessor to PrimeCare, which was
contracted to provide medical care at five state prisons.

November
19, 2005 The Express-Times
Six Northampton County Prison guards sickened by exposure to mold filed
notice Friday of their intent to sue the county and several past and present
county officials. A construction company, an environmental cleanup contractor
and a food services corporation are also named as defendants in the document.
The plaintiffs suffered both respiratory and gastrointestinal infections
after an ongoing expansion at the jail stirred up mold that contaminated the
air and food there, according to their attorney, John P. Karoly Jr. County
officials have long known mold is a problem at the prison, but did not act
quickly enough to fix it, he said. Also, Karoly said his clients meals were
fouled by mold because of flaws in the jail food service provider's storage
and preparation methods. The county is trying to cover up the mold problem,
he said. "These plaintiffs have been attempting to get more information
about what they've been exposed to and they've been denied that
information." All of the men have received medical treatment for their
illnesses and a few of them were hospitalized, Karoly said. They continue to
work at the prison, he said. Northampton County Executive Glenn Reibman, who
is named in the notice, did not return a phone call for comment Friday evening.
Other defendants named in the notice are former Director of Corrections James
Smith, Director of Corrections Todd Buskirk, Acting Warden Scott Hoke, Daniel
J. Keating Construction Company, of Philadelphia, CMC Environmental Hazard
Abatement Inc., of Jim Thorpe, Pa., and Aramark Correctional Services, Inc.,
of Philadelphia. In 2003, state prison inspectors found moldy areas and
moisture-related damage in the prison. The mold was blamed on a leaky shower
system in one of the cell blocks. At the time officials acknowledged that the
mold was a "very serious" health risk and said they intended to
replace the shower system.

September
7, 2005 The Express-TimesThree Northampton County Prison inmates have contracted
antibiotic-resistant staph infections, and three others may have the disease,
according to the prison's health care provider. All infected prisoners and
those who may have the disease were segregated from the general prison
population, and every prisoner was inspected to rule out additional cases,
PrimeCare Medical spokesman Todd Haskins said Tuesday. PrimeCare of
Harrisburg has the contract to provide medical care to the prison's 600
inmates. Haskins said the prisoners have methicillin-resistant staphylococcus
aureus, or MRSA, a skin disease that results in slow-to-heal boils or sores.
The bacteria can lead to serious wound infections, blood infections and
pneumonia, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
PrimeCare adopted an MRSA prevention and treatment policy in June and put information
about the disease in the pay envelopes of the prison employees. They received
the information shortly before the disease was detected this week, Haskins
said.

August
9, 2005 The Morning Call
Northampton County Prison has stored food in a bathroom, did not have hot
water or soap for kitchen workers to wash their hands and used refrigerators
not cold enough to safely store food. The conditions are revealed in the
Easton Health Bureau's inspection records of 2004 and 2005, which were
released last week to The Morning Call following a legal challenge by the
newspaper to the city's refusal to make the records public. City inspector Ed
Ferraro, interviewed about the city's inspection of prison conditions,
described the violations as so severe that, had they been found in a private
business, he would have asked the owner to close voluntarily until problems
were corrected. Like other food establishments, county prisons are covered by
a patchwork of agencies. And just like restaurants and food retailers, some
prisons are inspected more often than others and score better or worse than
others. Northampton County Prison failed two categories in its 2004
inspection by state officials, which is separate from inspections done by the
city. It failed to meet general cleanliness standards because of missing and
damaged floor tiles, and it failed to provide health exams to kitchen workers
to ensure they are disease-free. While maintaining a clean kitchen is
ultimately the responsibility of Northampton County Prison administrators,
the county pays a private company, Aramark, to run its food services. Aramark
is responsible for how the kitchen runs on a daily basis, Buskirk and Hoke
said, and violations such as storing chicken and roast beef at room
temperature and storing boxes of dry food in the bathroom would fall under
Aramark's responsibility.

Peach Bottom Atomic
Power Station
York County, Pennsylvania
Wackenhut (Group 4)
January 6, 2009 Chicago TribuneFederal energy regulators have proposed a $65,000 penalty for Exelon
Corp. after guards at the utility holding company's nuclear plant in
Pennsylvania were seen napping on the job. Exelon terminated its contract
with security service provider Wackenhut Corp. in 2007 and shifted to an
in-house team, not long after Wackenhut security officers at Exelon's Peach
Bottom plant were videotaped dozing while on duty. The tapes showed the armed
guards taking brief naps in the nuclear plant's "ready room," where
they are free to relax when not on patrol but must be ready to respond if
called. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission launched a review of
procedures at the plant in September 2007, after learning of the existence of
video recordings, the NRC noted Tuesday. The investigation, completed in
July, found "multiple occasions" in which guards were
"inattentive" and other guards had failed to tell their supervisors
about the behavior. Chicago-based Exelon "has made wide-ranging changes
to its security program at Peach Bottom and at other plants it owns as a
result of these events," the NRC noted Tuesday, in a release that
pointedly didn't use the words "nap" or "sleep." The
commission said it will continue to emphasize that "inattentiveness on
the part of those charged with the vital task of protecting and operating our
nuclear power plants [is] completely unacceptable."

February
28, 2008 AP
The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission acknowledged Thursday that
more should have been done to thoroughly investigate a tip that security
guards routinely took naps while on the job at a Pennsylvania nuclear plant.
It wasn’t until a videotape of guards sleeping in a “ready room” at the Peach
Bottom plant in south-central Pennsylvania surfaced several months later that
the NRC announced in September a special investigation. The tip was in the
form of a letter, which the NRC received last spring from a former employee
who was writing on behalf of current employees. After the NRC received the
letter, it allowed the Exelon Corp., owner of the plant, to investigate the
allegations. In doing so, Exelon found no evidence that guards were taking
nap breaks. NRC Chairman Dale Klein testified Thursday during a Senate
Environment and Public Works subcommittee hearing that one reason may be
because there was collusion by the guards to sleep during their shifts. He
said the letter’s author asked not to be contacted, and Klein said the agency
made a mistake by honoring that request. “We were not as rigorous as we
should have been,” said Klein, adding that the NRC is taking action to
prevent similar problems at all nuclear plants. After the videotape surfaced,
Exelon Corp. fired the Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based Wackenhut Corp. as its
security guard provider at Peach Bottom and its other plants. While
acknowledging there was wrongdoing, company and nuclear oversight officials
at the hearing sought to minimize the risk that the sleeping guards posed.
Christopher Crane, Exelon’s chief operating officer, said the guards in the
ready room were not at a guard post, but were instead in a staging area to assist
other guards if there was an incident. The company has 17 reactors at 10
plants nationwide in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Sen. Bob Casey,
D-Pa., said the event was inexcusable, and he was concerned there was a
culture at the plant that discouraged employees from coming forward to report
problems. He said the NRC had reported a “white” finding for the incident
based on their agency’s color-coded threat analysis, which means the sleeping
guards presented a low to moderate threat.

January
20, 2008 York Daily RecordU.S. Rep. Todd Platts, R-York County, said federal officials should have
taken a closer look into initial claims that Wackenhut Corp. security guards
had been sleeping on the job at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station. A more
comprehensive investigation into the plant's security problems alleged in a
March letter drafted by John Jasinski to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission may have uncovered other evidence of guard inattentiveness, he
said. "They should have erred on the side of a greater
investigation," Platts said. "Given the information that there was
a breach, they should have had broader look into all layers of
security." In March, Jasinski, a former head of Wackenhut Corp. security
at the power station, sent a letter to the NRC that described how guards had
witnessed other officers sleeping inside the plant's bullet-resistant
enclosures, or guard towers, and other areas at the plant. Commission and
plant officials both looked into Jasinski's claims, but were not able to substantiate
the allegations, said Neil Sheehan, an NRC spokesman. "In regards to the
letter," he said, "there was not a lot of tangible proof that
guards were inattentive in the guard towers." While the commission
wasn't able to tackle evidence of security problems at the plant, Kerry Beal,
a former Wackenhut officer, did record his fellow guards sleeping in a secure
location within the power station. Between March and August, Beal videotaped
members of security team sleeping in the plant's ready room. In September,
CBS News aired Beal's videos which eventually led to the plant terminating
its contract with Wackenhut and creating a new in-house force, Exelon Nuclear
Security. In the wake of Beal's recording, both the NRC and Exelon launched
investigations to find out why guards couldn't keep their eyes open while on
duty. "When the video did come out," Sheehan said, "we had
tangible proof that guards were inattentive instead of a letter that made
vague assertions that guards had been inattentive in the towers." But
some lawmakers have taken issue with the NRC's response to the power
station's security failures and have committed to conducting reviews of how
the commission handled the situation. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of
the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement that the
NRC's failure to act on "credible allegations of sleeping security
guards" has raised troubling questions. "It appears that there has
been a systematic failure, by both NRC officials and the nuclear plant licensee,
to ensure that these high-risk facilities are secure and employees are not
discouraged from expressing concerns about safety," he said. Next month,
the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee will meet with NRC officials to
discuss the issue. Also, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., and Sen. Arlen
Specter, R-Pa., has requested that the Committee on Environment and Public
Works hold a federal field hearing that would focus on the recent security
lapses at the power station.

December
14, 2007 Patriot-News
Wackenhut, one of the largest security firms in the world, just lost its
contract to protect 10 nuclear power plants. One of them was Three Mile
Island. The company can blame it all on a simple video tape that documented
about 10 of its employees sleeping on the job at the Peach Bottom Atomic
Power Station in York County. Chicago-based Exelon Corp., owner of the TMI,
Peach Bottom and Limerick plants in Pennsylvania, released a statement today
saying it would not renew its contracts with the security firm when they
expire next year. Instead, Exelon will take responsibility for plant security
in house. Exelon fired Wackenhut from Peach Bottom shortly after the video
tape was made public in late September. Today's announcement severs Exelon's
relationship with the security company at all of its plants by July of 2008.

December
4, 2007 AP
A former plant operator suggested "brutal" 12-hour shifts made
guards inattentive at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station. "Your body
is not designed to work 12 hours a day," Robert Hall said at a public
meeting Monday at the nearby Peach Bottom Inn. "The schedule is brutal.
It's a killer." Peach Bottom spokeswoman Bernadette Lauer said plant
security officers overwhelmingly elected to work the 12-hour shifts, however.
The meeting was held to discuss U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission follow-up
inspections on security officer attentiveness at the plant. Between March and
August, Wackenhut security officer Kerry Beal videotaped fellow security
officers napping in the plant's ready room. Guards in the ready room are
allowed to read, study or relax, but are expected to remain ready to respond
to a plant emergency. The power station has terminated its contract with
Wackenhut and put its own security force, Exelon Nuclear Security, in place
on Nov. 1. NRC officials and Exelon Nuclear representatives met to discuss
follow-up inspections the NRC has been conducting. The agency sent a team in
September to evaluate security. That inspection confirmed guards had been
sleeping on the job and the ready room had been dimly lit and poorly
ventilated and provided little to stimulate the officers. The plant has
improved temperature control and installed a computer the officers can use. A
second team visited Nov. 5. Among other findings, the team found Exelon
failed to provide proper oversight of its former Wackenhut security force,
and communication among officers was weak, NRC security inspector Dana Caron
said. Supervisors discouraged security officers from reporting
inattentiveness, Caron said.

October
30, 2007 The Patriot-News
The Wackenhut security officer who used a video camera to expose sleeping
co-workers at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station will not be allowed to
keep his job when plant owner Exelon takes over security operations at the
York County facility. Kerry Beal, who lives in southern Lancaster County, was
notified by mail Saturday that his application for a position with the
Exelon-led force at Peach Bottom was being turned down. “We regret to inform
you that you do not meet the selection criteria established for a position
with Exelon Nuclear Security at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station,” said
the letter, signed by Matthew Smith, manager of site human resources at Peach
Bottom. Beal’s video resulted in investigations by the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission and Exelon. The NRC, which licenses commercial nuclear
plants, concluded that as many as 10 security officers employed by the global
security firm Wackenhut slept while on duty, a violation of federal licensing
regulations. Exelon responded by firing Wackenhut from Peach Bottom and
launching a review of its contracts with the company at nine other plants,
including Three Mile Island and Limerick. Exelon announced it would take over
responsibility for security at Peach Bottom and would allow Wackenhut
employees to apply to keep their jobs. Wackenhut’s last day at Peach Bottom
is today. None of the 10 officers identified in the video will be hired by
Exelon, said Bernadette Lauer, a company spokeswoman. Lauer said Beal’s decision
to video tape co-workers and later release the video to WCBS-TV in New York
city, were not factors in the company’s decision to turn down his
application. “We’re grateful that he raised the issue so we can address it,”
she said. “But it had nothing to do with him not being hired by Exelon.”
Beal’s attorney, David Wachtel, said his client was disappointed and
concerned about his future. “We will get all the facts and see what to do,”
Wachtel said, but added that “it looks like retaliation.” If so, Beal could
file a claim of discrimination under the Energy Reorganization Act. The act
prohibits employers from firing or discriminating against workers who refuse
to engage in any practice prohibited under the ERA or the Atomic Energy Act
of 1954. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan would not comment on Exelon’s decision to
reject Beal’s application. Beal filmed members of a security team at Peach
Bottom sleeping in a “ready room” at the plant on four occasions between
February and August. The NRC, which is continuing to investigate, issued a
subpoena for the hard drive of Beal’s personal computer. The subpoena is
being challenged by his attorneys.

October
5, 2007 York Dispatch
A March letter to the federal agency charged with oversight of Peach Bottom
Atomic Power Station warned of security guards sleeping while on duty.
Because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission knew about the issues and did
nothing, an unnamed security guard videotaped his colleagues sleeping at the
nuclear power plant in June, said Peter Stockton, a senior investigator for
the national watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, or POGO.
"The NRC knew about this, about the problems at Peach Bottom way before
the videotape became news," Stockton said. "They knew about it and
did nothing." The tape, which aired on WCBS in New York, showed guards
nodding off while on duty. It prompted power plant operator Exelon to fire
its security provider, Wackenhut. And the tape set off an investigation by
the NRC, which concluded last week. The NRC and Exelon will hold a public
meeting to discuss the incident at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Peach Bottom Inn
at 6085 Delta Road in Peach Bottom Township. Letter from former employee: The
March letter, written by a former employee of Peach Bottom, said security
guards were exhausted and fatigued after working excessive over-time and
having difficulty adjusting to 12-hour shifts. As a result, guards were
taking "power naps which last 10 to 15 minutes or longer." The
former employee wrote the letter on behalf of some security guards, who
feared reprisal if they came forward, Stockton said. "The officers are
becoming very adept at coordinating amongst themselves. Officers fall asleep
quickly while on duty and are able to wake momentarily when called for radio
checks and then fall right back to sleep," the letter said. POGO
provided the letter, but withheld the former employee's name. The NRC
confirmed the authenticity of the letter, and that an agency inspector on
site at Peach Bottom had received it. "We did not ignore the concerns,
we looked at them," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC's Region
1, which includes Peach Bottom. "Resident inspectors are trained to
watch for those issues and when we get an allegation, we also convey it to
the company." However, Sheehan said "based on the information we
were provided at the time, we were unable to substantiate the concern."
Guards knew: Security guards knew the NRC's methods for identifying personnel
sleeping on duty, according to the letter, which included contacting Wackenhut
and informing them of complaints prior to taking any investigatory actions.
"They know how the NRC and licensee operate and feel no one wants to
really find out if anyone is sleeping, because they already know they
are," the former employee wrote in March. "Our moral and religious
obligations have been met and only you can decide whether you will act
accordingly or hide behind policies and procedures that have proven
ineffective in the past." U.S. Rep. Todd Platts, R-York County, said he
is "disconcerted" with the reports he has seen. The NRC agreed to
give a special briefing to Platts and U.S. Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and
Bob Casey, D-Pa., he said. "I will be looking for not just what went
wrong at the plant, but also what the NRC did with the information it
had," Platts said. Sheehan said while the NRC will discuss the
investigation next week, it could be until the end of October that it
releases any possible penalties assessed on Exelon.

September
25, 2007 Philadelphia Inquirer
Exelon Corp., the nation's largest producer of nuclear energy, said yesterday
that it was moving to terminate a contract with Wackenhut Corp. to provide
security at Exelon's Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station after reviewing videos
of guards "nodding off or sleeping" at the York County, Pa., power
plant. Alerted by a reporter from New York's WCBS-TV, both Exelon and the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said last week that they were
investigating security at the Susquehanna River plant. Chris Crane, chief
operating officer of Exelon Generation, said that station representatives
showed the videos to Exelon officials on Friday and that Exelon quickly
decided to end Wackenhut's role at the plant. Peach Bottom is one of 10 sites
where Exelon produces energy from 17 nuclear reactors. "This is not
acceptable, and we will not tolerate it," Crane said in a statement.
"I want to be clear that nothing has happened at Peach Bottom that
represents a security or safety threat to the public. We are dealing with
unacceptable behavior, and we will fix it." In a conference call with
reporters, Crane said the videos had been taken by a Wackenhut security
officer over the course of several months, starting in February. Crane said
the guards shown to be inattentive were not responsible for patrolling the
plant, but were on duty in a "ready room" so they could respond
immediately if a security threat was detected. Crane said the video raised
concerns about Wackenhut's performance. He said Exelon planned to review the
contractor's role throughout Exelon's nuclear facilities, for which Wackenhut
has provided security since 1999. Exelon also owns Philadelphia's Peco Energy
Co. A spokesman said Wackenhut does not provide security to Peco. Crane said
the video of the guards "clearly shows behaviors that are not
tolerable." Guards in the room are allowed to read while on duty, or to
use training programs on computer terminals, but are required to stay awake
and alert, he said. Peach Bottom guards are paid $18.78 to $21.32 an hour,
Exelon said. Crane said that while the problem was apparently limited to one
of four security crews, it was worrisome that the videos had been taken over
several months. "If this has been going on on a crew for a period of
time, it's got to have some tacit acceptance in that crew," he said. The
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has two resident inspectors at Peach
Bottom, said Thursday that it was sending a five-member team to assess plant
security and Exelon's response to the situation. "We continue to believe
the site is secure," Samuel J. Collins, the NRC's regional
administrator, said in a statement. Plant personnel are required to report
security lapses, but it is unclear whether the guard who recorded his
sleeping colleagues had done so. "The employee says he has, but there is
no corroborating evidence," Crane said. Exelon said the guards involved
- "fewer than 10," a spokesman said - had been barred from the
site, pending completion of Wackenhut's own investigation. Crane said
Wackenhut was providing replacement personnel to augment the plant's security
force. Based in Florida, Wackenhut is a subsidiary of G4S P.L.C., a
British-based multinational that calls itself "the world's leading
provider of security solutions." Marc Shapiro, a G4S senior vice
president, said Wackenhut was confident its investigation would show the
Peach Bottom problem to be isolated. "We know this is an anomaly, and
not representative of our company," Shapiro said. Activist groups have
long complained that nuclear plants pose large security risks. The issue
gained new prominence after the 9/11 attacks raised concerns that terrorists
could build a so-called "dirty bomb": a conventional device that
would spread toxic nuclear materials. The NRC has periodically cited
nuclear-plant operators for security lapses. Last month, an NRC inspector
found an armed guard asleep at a gate outside the Indian Point nuclear
generating station in Buchanan, N.Y., about 35 miles north of New York.
Indian Point is operated by Entergy Corp. of New Orleans, the nation's
second-largest nuclear operator.

NEW CASTLE — A mystery surrounds
Lawrence County’s jail. It doesn’t involve the lockup so much as what the
Lawrence County commissioners may do with it. For some time now, the
commissioners have been involved in a mostly secretive effort to look into
having a private operator run the facility. The commissioners have solicited
offers and, supposedly, one company has responded. But what that response is
remains part of the mystery; the commissioners won’t say. Instead, the New
Castle News was told it would have to file a request under Pennsylvania’s
Right to Know Law in order to obtain information about the proposal. Why?
Presumably the commissioners have ready access to the proposal, so all the
right to know filing does is drag things out. But this has been the general
process the commissioners have followed with their jail privatization
initiative. They have had no substantive public discussions about their
intentions and have not articulated precisely what they hope to achieve.
Similarly, we don’t know what methods or insights they are using to assess
any proposals, as the county has never had private jail operations before.
Even the Lawrence County Prison Board, which oversees the jail and its
operations, has been kept in the dark, with several members saying they have
not been informed of any privatization offers. And in an odd exchange at this
week’s prison board meeting, Commissioner Robert Del Signore said he has not
even looked at the proposal the commissioners received. “I don’t want to look
at it,” Del Signore said. “I don’t want to be swayed one way or another.”
Huh? How does any commissioner plan to assess the proposal if he is unwilling
to review it? So this merely adds another baffling layer to the whole thing.
As we have said previously, we support the idea of looking at ways to
privately run some government operations. If it reduces costs or promotes efficiency, that serves the public good. But none of that
involves secrecy. To the contrary, a step as unique as turning the county
jail over to a private operator ought to be handled as openly as possible.
The fact the commissioners have opted for a high level of secrecy merely adds
to the questions. After all, the commissioners do not own the jail. It is the
property of the people of Lawrence County. And good government procedures
dictate that the taxpayers ought to be kept in the loop when major changes
such as this are explored. Furthermore, any privatization move with the jail
involves policy matters that absolutely should be handled in public. The
commissioners need to rethink their approach, and taxpayers should demand it.

June 4, 2013 citizensvoice.com

Pennsylvania will let its final
contract with a downtown Hazleton correctional facility lapse at the end of
the month, state Rep. Tarah Toohil said Monday. Toohil, R-Butler Township,
received notice from the administration of Gov. Tom Corbett that the contract
will expire with Community Education Centers of West Caldwell, N.J. She
pressed to close the correctional facility, as did leaders of the local
government and the Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce, because of crimes
linked to the center's inmates. Two other state contracts with the facility
expired last year. CEC did not say whether it planned to close the facility
or perhaps look for funding to house federal or county inmates in Hazleton.
When buying MinSec in late 2012, however, CEC said it sought to move the
facility out of Hazleton and was seeking another site. In Hazleton, inmates
released on passes or those who settled in the area after serving sentences
have been involved in murders, bank robberies and other crimes. Many merely
failed to return to the facility on time, so police had to apprehend them.
"We had such crime and loss of business," Toohil said. We're very,
very glad and very thankful that Gov. Corbett has listened to our concerns.
He's seen the detrimental impact and granted our request." Mayor Joseph
Yannuzzi said if the facility closes, Hazleton will move "one step
toward restoring our reputation and the perception of downtown."
Hazleton police Chief Frank DeAndrea credited Toohil for tenaciously opposing
the facility and said the end of the state contract gives him a reason to
celebrate. But he said the facility still might get federal contracts, and
people whom the facility brought to Hazleton will remain. "The community
is going to be left with the scars of this facility. For quite some time, the
people who have moved into and located into our area and the illegal
businesses they set up will remain," DeAndrea said. He listed drug
sales, theft rings, prostitution, gangs and copper thefts as types of
activities that resulted from the center's presence. He will continue working
with Toohil and other leaders to advocate laws that protect Hazleton and
other communities from hosting correctional facilities. "I recognize
that this facility brought a ton of ugliness and black marks to our
community, but if we can use it to better or, possibly, save another
community that's what it's all about," DeAndrea said. West Hazleton
Borough has seen its share of crime related to inmates, or former inmates,
borough police Chief Brian Buglio said. Buglio recalled a 2010 murder, a bank
robbery and stolen vehicles and vehicle break-ins when he committed by people
who stayed at the facility. Like DeAndrea, Buglio said some former inmates
have decided to stay in the area or formed ties with the community. Though
some inmates have been rehabilitated and may not commit future crimes, he
predicted other inmates will fall back into the same lifestyle that brought
them to the facility in the first place - but now they will commit crimes
locally. Specifically, Buglio pointed to the Dec. 6, 2010 murder of Abdul Hakeen
Shabazz, a 30-year-old father, who was shot while selling $400 of marijuana
to two brothers, Izel and Isiah Garrett and their cousin, Tyrek Smith. The
Garretts, who are from Mechanicsburg, Cumberland County, were in West
Hazleton to visit their father, Calvin Garrett, a former MinSec inmate. The
Garretts were found guilty of killing Shabazz, while Smith was found guilty
of a robbery charge. Buglio also talked about an April 2012 bank robbery
spree. In total, Shawn Luther Kelley, a former MinSec resident who police
said lived in the area after he was released from the facility, was accused
of committing a robbery at Citizen's Bank, West Hazleton and also robberies
at banks in Hazle Township and in Hazleton during a two-week spree. Kelley
was originally charged by local police, but now faces federal charges related
to the crimes in May 2012. His trial has been continued until July 15. Buglio
said he was "extremely happy" to hear the facility's contract won't
be renewed, not only as police chief but for the residents of West Hazleton
and Hazleton. "Murder. I don't know that it gets any worse than
that," Buglio said. A MinSec alumnus, Joseph Cedeno, is charged with
stabbing a man to death in Carbondale in October 2012, In another murder in
2009, a former inmate was the victim. Allen Fernandez was executed in Ransom
Township, Lackawanna County, after being driven there from Hazleton. Lew
Dryfoos, who was president of the chamber when the effort to oust MinSec
began, said the facility drained resources of the police in Hazleton, West
Hazleton and the state police. "If you had wanted to come up with a way
to wreck our downtown, you would have been hard pressed to come up with
something worse than MinSec. Although MinSec's closure alone won't fix all of
downtown's problems, it is certainly a very positive development,"
Dryfoos said. Chamber President Donna Palermo said she always had difficulty
knowing how many residents the facility contained. Late last September, 28 of
118 inmates transferred out of Hazleton when the state ended contracts for
treating people who had issues involving mental health, alcohol or other
drugs in the facility. "We are just so happy that the state has seen
just how destructive this facility has been for our downtown and our
businesses and finally saw that the many, many incidents that we have been
reporting to them, has been harmful to our community and surrounding
communities," Palermo said. "We at the chamber want to especially
thank Gov. Corbett and Secretary of Corrections John Wetzel for making this
decision and a special thank you to Rep. Toohil." Crimes involving
inmates at the facility slowed and inspections intensified after Wetzel met
with state lawmakers in April 2011 in Hazleton. In letters to the editor,
inmates received thanks for helping with community projects and for carrying
boxes for two senior citizens moving into a new apartment. "They're not
doing the same things they were when 14 or 15 of them would hang out on the
corner," Mayor Yannuzzi said, but he added the perception of the
facility was slower to change. MinSec purchased the Altamont Building, 145 W.
Broad St., at Broad and Church streets, in 2008 for $2.18 million. In
December 2012, CEC acquired MinSec and said it sought a new location for a
corrections center. Attempts to obtain comments from CEC were unsuccessful on
Monday. On May 23, the company issued a news release saying that is contracts
were renewed in New Jersey and at 11 corrections facilities in Pennsylvania.
The company's website, however, indicates it had 12 facilities in
Pennsylvania. State Sen. John Yudichak, D-Plymouth Township, complemented
Wetzel and the chamber for addressing the numerous complaints about the
facility. "The downtown location of this particular facility, in the
heart of the Hazleton business district, presented significant problems for
city businesses and the community," Yudichak said. Toohil hopes private
investors will find a new use for the Altamont, which was built as a luxury
hotel in the 1920s and served as a personal care home in the 1960s. "My
dream for that building is it will be recognized for the beautiful building
it is," she said.Yannuzzi said investors were interested in the building
previously and he expects that the building will sell if the owners advertise
it at a market price. "I don't think it will be as difficult as you
think," he said. "It's a beautiful building. It needs some
investment." Kelly Monitz, Amanda Christman and Jill Whalen, staff
writers, contributed to this story.

January
6, 2010 Star-TribuneHundreds of Pennsylvania prisoners who might have saved a cash-strapped
private prison in western Minnesota from closing will go to state prisons in
Michigan and Virginia instead. Those 2,000 medium-security inmates will be
sent to under-used prisons that operate in similar fashion to what's being
done in Pennsylvania, said Jeffrey Beard, the state's secretary of
corrections. Minnesota had sent a proposal to Pennsylvania in hopes of
keeping a private prison in Appleton open. That prison, which in past years
had handled overflow from state-owned prisons in Minnesota and Washington,
will close Feb. 1. Corrections Corp. of America (CCA), which owns the prison
and runs 64 prisons in 19 states, is seeking a new state or federal contract
to reopen the prison sometime this year. "A significant portion of that
facility would have to be occupied" to reopen, said CCA spokesman Steve
Owen. Pennsylvania's decision was a disappointment, he said. "Had that
contract been secured, we could have kept Appleton open." Owen said his
company had no advance notice of Pennsylvania's intentions when the decision
was made in December to close the prison. It was an economic decision, he
said, because occupancy at the 1,600-bed prison had dwindled to about 200
prisoners. The Minnesota Department of Corrections sent prisoners to Appleton
in recent years when state-run prisons were full, but that need diminished
with expansions in Faribault and other prisons, Deputy Director David Crist
has said. Appleton also lost all of the inmates it once housed from
Washington state. Kansas, Nevada and Oklahoma also asked for the Pennsylvania
prisoner transfer, for which Pennsylvania would have paid all costs.
Prisoners would remain in out-of-state prisons for three years.
Pennsylvania's prison population stands at more than 51,000 in buildings
intended to house 43,222 inmates. The Appleton closing will throw as many as
125 employees out of work. Owen said Wednesday that 18 workers from Appleton
have thus far been hired by other CCA prisons. Appleton Mayor Ron Ronning, a
prison employee, has said the closure will hit hard in the city of 2,700
residents.

August
18, 2007 Times-Tribune
The Lackawanna County Prison’s medical director was fired from a similar post
at a Pittsburgh-based health care services company in 1999 in an apparent
dispute over a new treatment for hepatitis C in state prisons the company
served. Company officials could not be reached to explain his termination,
but in a lawsuit later filed against the company, Dr. Edward J. Zaloga
claimed he was fired because he disagreed with a plan to begin treating the
liver disease with a then-new, unproven drug that ultimately would be a waste
of taxpayer money. The treatment “would waste more than $7 million of the
(state) taxpayers’ money on unnecessary and unwarranted medical treatment,”
he charged in a suit filed against Wexford Health Sources Inc. in November
1999. He claimed in his suit that his management practices had created a
profit for the company of $4.1 million, and the company — which at the time was
trying to get the state to pay for the new treatment — feared it might have
to pay for treating inmates if the state found out about its profits. He was
fired for raising the concerns, he alleged. The suit demanded more than $1
million in unpaid wages, expenses, lawyer’s fees and punitive damages. The
company, in its legal responses, denied earning anywhere near $4 million. It
denied his other claims as well. County judges rejected Dr. Zaloga’s suit in
separate rulings in 2002 and 2004 with one judge writing that Dr. Zaloga
failed to establish “a report of wrongdoing ... or waste.” Wexford in its
legal filings acknowledged firing Dr. Zaloga but did not say why. Dr. Zaloga
is now co-owner of a company, Correctional Care Inc., of Moosic, that
provides medical services to county prison inmates, and oversees those
services. A former inmate, Shakira Staten, 22, a federal prisoner who gave
birth at the prison July 10 and has since been transferred to Adams County
Prison to await sentencing, has sued him, the company and the prison in
federal court. She claims she was a victim of cruel and unusual punishment
because her pleas to be taken to the hospital when she went into labor were
ignored and she had the baby alone in a cell. The county Prison Board this
week apologized for the way she treated and blamed a Correctional Care nurse
for “serious errors of judgment” that included failing to properly monitor
her labor and unnecessarily delaying taking her to the hospital. The board
barred the nurse from working in the prison. A secretary in the company’s
office said Dr. Zaloga was not available for comment and would only reply to
written questions. A secretary at Wexford Health Sources said no company
officials would be available to comment until next week. Dr. Zaloga was
Wexford’s regional medical director for its central Pennsylvania operations
from Feb. 1 to Sept. 29, 1999, the day the company’s operations director
dismissed him, according to court records.

April
7, 2004The family of a 43-year-old man who was found hanging
in his prison cell two days after a 2002 drug arrest filed suit this week
charging "reckless indifference" on the part of Delaware County’s
prison officials.Attorney Jon Auritt,
who represents the family of John Focht, is seeking the standard in excess of
$50,000 in damages from several named defendants including the Wackenhut
Corp., which manages the prison, and the Delaware County Board of Prison
Inspectors. The litigation was filed on behalf of the victim’s
estranged wife, Vanessa Fay Focht Bowen of Ridley Township, and their four
children, ranging in ages from 14 to 25. Attorney Robert DiOrio,
solicitor for the prison board, declined comment on the litigation filed in
Delaware County Common Pleas Court. "We literally just read it and are
reviewing it," he said. Auritt in the suit said that Focht had a
history of depression and attempted suicide that caused him to be
hospitalized. He said prior to being arrested in February 2002 in Darby
Borough, Focht was drinking 20 beers per day and using cocaine. The
litigation charges that because of his prior suicide and other issues related
to his addiction, he was to be observed at 15-minute intervals.
"On Feb. 5, 2002 at about 7:30 p.m. within two days of decedent’s
arrival at the prison, (Focht) was found hanging from a noose made from his
bootlaces which were attached to the wall grating in his cell. "When he
was discovered, decedent was dead and it is believed he had died about an
hour before," Auritt states in the suit. (Delco Times)

January
22, 2004
A Northampton County bargaining unit alleges county officials unfairly
eliminated six jobs in the county prison's kitchen, which was privatized this
month. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
District Council 88 filed a complaint last Thursday with state labor
officials, saying the county had engaged in unfair labor practices. The six
prison kitchen workers were part of the so-called "residual unit"
of county workers who voted last July to organize. The group does not yet have
a contract, and meetings to discuss the deal have proven difficult. Internal
memos between county and union officials detail a tense exchange of comments
that led to the collapse of talks. The complaint of unfair labor practices
filed last Thursday is a one-page document that does not elaborate on details
of the claim against the county. But officials said the complaint stems from
administrators' decision to eliminate six county jobs and bring in a private
company to run the prison kitchen. County Corrections Director H. James Smith
said the workers have been encouraged to re-apply for work with the new
company, Aramark Correctional Services, which is already running the
kitchen. (The Express-Times)

January
5, 2004
A man killed a female co-worker at a prison halfway house and substance-abuse
treatment center in North Philadelphia on Monday, then fatally shot himself,
police said. "It appears to be a murder-suicide," said
Officer Richard Devlin, a police department spokesman. Police said
Vivian Figueroa, 34, was shot once in the head at around 12:20 p.m. inside a
third-floor office in a portion of the building operated by Liberty
Management, a private company under contract with the state Department of
Corrections. The shooter was identified by police as Shawn Gilmore,
also 34. Police said both worked at Liberty Management. About 77 inmates and
recent parolees live at the center, according to Department
of Corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton. No residents were
involved in the shooting, she said. McNaughton said she did not know
whether employees at the halfway house were usually subjected to security
checks on their way in and out of the building. Some Department of
Corrections halfway houses have a relatively low level of security and do not
require employees to be checked for weapons, she said. Distraught
relatives of the man and woman gathered outside the building in the hours
after the shooting and engaged in a series of angry exchanges with each
other.

Pennsylvania
Legislature
Aramark, GEO GroupFebruary
21, 2012 Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
After decades of explosive growth, prison systems face some of the same
cost-cutting pressures as other parts of state budgets. Gov. Tom Corbett
proposed no increase in prison funding in next year's budget, which — if the
state Legislature agrees — would stop a decades-long trend of rapidly rising
costs. Similar cost pressures in other states prompted a private prison
company to set aside $250 million to buy and run state prisons. Officials
here say full privatization — which Ohio did with one of its prisons last
year — is off the table. "We're reviewing everything, but the full and
total privatization of an SCI (state correctional institution) is not
something we're looking at," said state Department of
Corrections spokeswoman Susan Bensinger.

May
16, 2011 AP
The cafeteria in Pennsylvania's Capitol is reopening under new management 18
months after it was briefly shut down by a rodent infestation. The
Patriot-News of Harrisburg reports a local company is reopening the cafeteria
Monday as Capitol Restaurant by C&J Catering. The caterer took over
control of the cafeteria after food services giant
Aramark scraped its three-year lease in December. The state Department of
Health shut down the cafeteria for two weeks in December 2009 over a rodent
infestation. It soon reopened but more problems were discovered a month later
during an unannounced walkthrough. Catering company owner Jamie Berger has
been selling salads and sandwiches from kiosk outside the cafeteria for the
last month. She says her employees will conduct weekly health inspections so
previous problems don't return.

September
16, 2010 Think Progress
In December 2009, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — a
powerful front group that helps corporate representatives craft template
legislation for state lawmakers, funded partially by the private prison
industry — hosted Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce (R) and began debate on
legislation that would provide broad powers to local police to arrest anyone
who might look like an immigrant. ALEC then distributed the template
legislation to its members. The January/February 2010 edition of ALEC’s
magazine highlights the draft version of SB1070 — the “Support Our Law
Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act” — as model legislation. In April of
this year, Pearce then introduced ALEC’s template as the infamous SB1070 law.
Notably, the ALEC task force which helped Pearce devise his racial profiling
law included Laurie Shanblum, a lobbyist from the mega-private prison
corporation Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) which previously played
a role in privatizing many of Texas’ prisons. An investigation from Arizona’s
KPHO-TV found more ties between SB1070 and the private prison industry: Paul
Senseman, Gov. Janet Brewer’s (R-AZ) deputy chief of staff was a former
lobbyist for CCA (his wife is still a lobbyist for CCA) and Chuck Coughlin,
Brewer’s campaign chairman, runs the lobbying firm in Arizona that represents
CCA. In These Times reporter Beau Hodai, who also reported much of SB1070’s
connections to the private prison industry, has a chart to explain the
relationship. CCA is set to receive well over $74 million in tax dollars in
FY2010 for running immigration detention centers. In a presentation given
earlier this year, Pershing Square Capital, a hedge fund with a large
financial stake in CCA, suggested that CCA’s profitability depends on
increasing numbers of immigrants sent to prison. Many of the legislators
helping to earn CCA more profits with radical anti-immigrant bills mirroring
SB1070 have been recipients of private prison industry cash or have worked
closely with the CCA-funded ALEC organization: – TENNESSEE: Earlier this
year, legislators in Tennessee passed an immigration bill with provisions
“similar to, but less harsh than, those of SB 1070, including requiring city
and county jails in the state to report any person who may be in violation of
immigration laws to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” But that
wasn’t enough: right-wing local lawmakers also passed a resolution honoring
Arizona’s SB1070, and a delegation of state lawmakers promised to introduce
an anti-immigrant bill even “broader” than SB1070 in 2011. Many of the
leading local lawmakers who voted for the anti-immigrant bill and resolution
received thousands of dollars from CCA’s political action committee in the
past two years, including State Reps. Gerald McCormick ($250), Barrett Rich
($500), Eric Watson ($250) and State Sens. Bill Ketron ($1,000), Jim Tracy
($500), Dolores Gresham ($1,000), Bo Watson ($500), and Jack Johnson ($500).
Tracy, who sponsored the resolution honoring Arizona’s SB1070, also received
$2,000 directly from CCA founder Tom Beasley, reports the Nashville City
Paper. CCA retains five lobbyists in the state and spent at least $50,000
this year to lobby on immigration and other issues. – OKLAHOMA: Rep. Mary
Fallin (R-OK), who won her party’s nomination to run for governor this year,
received the maximum donation permitted by law from CCA. State Rep. Randy
Terrill (R-OK), who announced that he was planning an “Arizona-Plus”
immigration bill that would be harsher than SB1070, is a proud member of the
CCA-funded American Legislative Exchange Council. – COLORADO: A group of
Republican lawmakers in Colorado, after a research trip to Arizona this
summer, have stated that they plan on passing a SB1070 law in Colorado next
year. CCA’s lobbyists in Colorado have raised funds for many of the lawmakers
in the group. CCA lobbyist Margy Christiansen raised $400 State Rep. Randy Baumgardner,
one of the leaders of Colorado’s Arizona expedition, and CCA lobbyist Jason
Dunn raised $150 for State Sen. Mike Kopp, the Republican minority leader who
is promising to promote an SB1070 bill next session. – FLORIDA: During the
gubernatorial primary campaign between disgraced businessman Rick Scott and
Attorney General Bill McCollum (R-FL), the prospect of importing Arizona’s
SB1070 became a prominent issue in the race, with both candidates promising
to bring a version of the law to the state. While many Florida Republicans
recoiled at the idea, which stands to alienate many Hispanic voters, a cadre
of state lawmakers and candidates for the state legislature, most funded by
the prison industry, announced their support for an SB1070-type law. State
Rep. Bill Snyder, who has received $500 from CCA, pledged to introduce a bill
more draconian than SB1070. State House candidate Ben Albritton, another
outspoken supporter of SB1070, took $500 from CCA, and State Rep. Joe Negron,
who has been working with Snyder to sponsor the bill, received $1,000 from
the Geo Group, another major private prison contractor which operates
immigrant detention centers. Overall, the Republican Party of Florida has
been the biggest recipient of prison industry cash in the past two years:
$37,000 from CCA and $145,000 from the Geo Group. – PENNSYLVANIA: In the Key
State, State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-PA) introduced the ALEC-drafted “Support
Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act,” one month before State Sen.
Russell Pearce (R-AZ) introduced his version of the bill in Arizona. Metcalfe
is a highly active member of ALEC. He was paid $1,500 by ALEC just to attend
its meetings with CCA lobbyists on how to draft the law. In Tennessee, the
average daily number of immigration detainees sank to 40 in FY2009, down from
95 in FY2008. This may change with CCA’s aggressive lobbying for more laws
encouraging aggressive arrests of immigrants or people who look like
immigrants. Charles Maldonado, who has reported on CCA’s corrupting influence
at the Nashville City Paper, notes that CCA may see new business at its West
Tennessee Detention Facility with the passage of more SB1070-related laws.
ALEC, with funds from several private prison companies, helped sponsor
“truth-in-sentencing” and “three-strikes-you’re-out” laws all over the
country for the past two decades. These laws have greatly increased
incarceration rates, and have contributed to America’s distinction of having
the largest prison population in the world.

January
4, 2010 Tribune-DemocratState employees and visitors can again buy food and coffee in the Capitol
cafeteria. The privately run eatery at the state Capitol opened its doors
Monday morning after being shut down for more than two weeks for a cleanup.
State inspectors had found mouse droppings and other health hazards.
Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp. holds the contract to operate the cafeteria
on the ground floor of the statehouse. Officials acknowledged that the
cafeteria had not been inspected for four years, even though state law
requires annual inspections. The cafeteria will be inspected monthly for the
next six months, they said.

December
18, 2009 Tribune-DemocratThe cafeteria in Pennsylvania’s Capitol was shut down and workers scoured
the facility Friday after health inspectors found evidence of a rodent
infestation and dishwashing water that wasn’t hot enough. The ground-floor
cafeteria, a popular coffee and lunch spot for visitors to the statehouse and
people who work there, was closed Thursday after state Department of
Agriculture officials made an unannounced inspection. “There were mouse
droppings around the facility too numerous to mention,” said Justin Fleming,
a spokesman for the state Agriculture Department. Aramark Corp., the Philadelphia-based
food service company that runs the cafeteria, said the problems were being
corrected.

November 19, 2009 Pittsburg Tribune-ReviewState Rep. John M. Perzel exercised an option to buy 5,000 shares of
stock in a prison company — days before a grand jury recommended felony
charges against him and fellow Republicans — and then resigned from the
company's board the day he was charged. U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission records show Perzel, the former House speaker from Philadelphia,
on Oct. 28 exercised options that he earned as a board director of Geo Group
for stock valued at the time at $105,360. On Nov. 12, he resigned from the
board, which he joined in 2005. He had just been elected to another term.
Attorney General Tom Corbett on Nov. 12 charged Perzel with masterminding a
"sophisticated criminal strategy" to spend more than $10 million of
taxpayer money on political campaigns. Perzel did not respond Wednesday to
messages left with his Harrisburg and Philadelphia offices. Asked whether
Perzel was asked to resign, Geo Group spokesman Pablo E. Perez wrote in an
e-mail: "Our company has no comment beyond the information it has
disclosed through its public filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission." The SEC filing states his resignation did not involve
"any disagreement with GEO concerning its operations, policies or
practices." Perez said the company does not have contracts in
Pennsylvania. Last year, Geo Group withdrew from a nearly $40 million-a-year
management contract to run an 1,883-bed Delaware
County prison. The Boca Raton, Fla.-based company held the contract since
1995 and had another year to go. Perzel, who owns a home in Boca Raton,
joined Geo Group's board while serving as House speaker. The company formerly
was known as Wackenhut Corrections. According to a Geo Group proxy statement
for the April stockholders meeting, Perzel served on four of its committees —
including the audit and compensation panels. During fiscal 2008, according to
the filing, he was compensated $147,953 in board fees and options. Perzel's
job in the Legislature pays him about $78,000 annually. Perzel exercised his
options on 5,000 Geo Group shares Oct. 28 — the first day he was able to do
so, the SEC filings show. He has given House caucus officials no indication
he might resign his legislative seat, said House GOP spokesman Stephen
Miskin. He is not required to resign unless convicted. Under House rules, he
would give up his minority chairmanship of the Urban Affairs Committee if a
judge would order a trial. If convicted, Perzel could face loss of his
pension, which would be based on years of service and three highest
consecutive years of salary. He was paid $114,915.55 annually as speaker, a
post he held from 2003-07. His pension could top $100,000, according to
estimates that the Tribune-Review compiled. Robert Gentzel, press secretary
for the State Employees Retirement System, said no official figure is readily
available on Perzel's maximum pension benefits. By law, a retired legislator
cannot earn more in a year on a pension than his or her highest annual income
while in office, he said. Perzel is charged with theft, conspiracy,
obstruction of justice, conflict of interest, and hindering apprehension or
prosecution. Two House aides charged in the scandal — John Zimmerman and Jill
Seaman — are suspended without pay, pending the outcome of the charges,
Miskin said.

November
12, 2009 Philadelphia Inquirer
At 59, John Michael Perzel has lived a life of contradictions. He was a
brilliant political strategist who had to repeat the 10th grade. He was among
the state's most prolific fundraisers, but was uncomfortable in crowds. He
went from being one of the most recognizable state politicians - the speaker
of the House with aspirations of the governor's mansion - to
little-heard-from back-bencher two years ago. Now, Perzel, who serves on the
board of one of the nation's leading private prison companies, begins a fight
to stay out of jail. State prosecutors today charged him with criminal counts
in the funding of a software program used in political campaigns in the
ongoing Bonusgate probe.

November
5, 2007 Altoona Mirror
As Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections plans to build three more
prisons, a state House bill would ensure that the state — not private companies
— will operate them. Corrections officials await
funding requested in their budgets to build the prisons on existing grounds
at Huntingdon, Rockview in Centre County and Graterford in Montgomery County.
Private companies could not operate those, or any other prisons in
Pennsylvania, if lawmakers pass a bill discussed during a public hearing Oct.
25. It also would instruct a legislative task force to investigate the
feasibility of privately run institutions, which supporters say cost the
state less, provide better quality inmate care and can solve overcrowding
problems. Some state governments contract with companies operating private
prisons, although Pennsylvania does not. However, the state is home to one
private prison, which opened last spring in Clearfield County west of
Philipsburg. Texas-based Cornell Companies Inc. operates the Moshannon Valley
Correctional Institution. Inmate assignments are made through a contract with
the federal Bureau of Prisons. The state has no affiliation with the facility.
Low-security inmates are housed at the prison, mostly from Washington, D.C.
As of Thursday, the prison’s population was 1,482. If the moratorium bill
passes, it will not affect the Clearfield County facility. “We’re not trying
to shut anybody down or say all private facilities are bad,” said state Rep.
Thomas Caltagirone, D-Berks, Judiciary Committee chairman. He supports the
bill and led the recent hearing. Clearfield County Commissioner Rex Read said
the private prison has benefited the county with jobs. A community group, on
which Commissioner Mike Lytle participates, meets regularly to discuss any
concerns related to the facility. “I think it has gone very well,” Read said.
“There are a lot of area people that work there. I can’t really say anything
negative about it.” As of August, three of the state’s 27 prisons were not
housing inmates beyond capacity. “We’re growing about 200 inmates a month,”
spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said. ‘‘We’re very crowded.’’ In addition to the
three new facilities planned, new emergency housing units will help alleviate
overcrowding. Nathan A. Benefield, director of policy research for the
Commonwealth Foundation, said overcrowding and the state’s cost per inmate —
$31,363 in 2005-06 — is enough to consider privatization. Although the state
will not seek private prison contracts, it contracts for some halfway houses
and prison services, such as food and health care. Despite those private
contracts, Caltagirone said the state shouldn’t compromise public safety by
allowing fully private facilities. ‘We’re not dealing with choir boys here;
we’re dealing with murderers,’’ he said. ‘‘Certainly, I think we don’t want
to compromise public safety by saving money.’’ William Sprenkle, corrections
deputy administration secretary, testified during the Oct. 25 hearing that
evidence shows no great difference in cost between state and private prisons.
He also discussed problems in Louisiana’s private prisons, which had more
inmate escapes, more reports of aggravated sexual misconduct and less
monitoring and control of substance abuse among inmates. Roy Pinto, vice
president of the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association, said
prison positions, and any other involving public safety, should remain with
the government. ‘‘The growing trend across the country is a lot of states are
bailing out of these private prisons because they find that they end up
costing more money, not less,’’ he said.

August
31, 2006 Philadelphia City PaperWill the pay-raise issue cost incumbents as dearly in the Nov. 7 general
election as it did in last May's primary? Back then, "lifer"
incumbents were tossed from the ballot by newcomers funded by angry voters
and grassroots organizations. The backers were mad that House and Senate
members voted themselves a raise at a secret legislative hearing in 2005. The
"throw the bums out" approach worked well in rural areas, even
after some returned the money or gave it to charity, and later in the year,
the raises were repealed. But for all the stir, it
had no effect on city incumbents. Two Democrats, Tim Kearney and Brendan Boyle , vying for the House seats held by entrenched
Northeast Republicans, think the disdain could soon return. Kearney, who
works for a health-care transportation company, is running for the second
time against House Speaker John Perzel , a dominant
fixture who represents the 172nd District. Perzel has unabashedly said he has
no regrets about accepting the raise. If the state wants to attract the best
and the brightest (supposedly including himself), proper compensation is
essential, he maintains. Kearney admits he has a challenge, but says he is
better prepared than two years ago. He thinks he could find help in two
issues: the pay raise and a potential conflict of interest for Perzel. As
reported by the Inquirer in July, there is a possible ethical issue looming
involving Perzel's position on the board of directors of the Geo Group, Inc.,
which privately runs prisons. Geo Group wants to take over a competitor that
has state contracts for several juvenile detention centers. "When I go
door-to-door in the district, I hear from people that they are still mad
about the pay raise, upset that Mr. Perzel not only took it, but wouldn't
return it after it was repealed," says Kearney. "They also are
talking about Mr. Perzel's side deals such as with the Geo Group. They all
read the papers."

July
24, 2006 Philadelphia Inquirer
A deal brewing on Wall Street involving a $220 million-plus takeover of a
company that runs private prisons could put House Speaker John M. Perzel in
an ethical bind, experts say. Perzel (R., Phila.) is on the board of
directors of Florida-based Geo Group Inc., the nation's second-largest
private-prison company, which recently submitted a takeover bid for
competitor Cornell Cos. Inc. Geo doesn't conduct any business with state
government, though it does run the Delaware County prison. But Houston-based
Cornell has at least $50 million worth of contracts with the state to run 17
juvenile detention centers across Pennsylvania. Experts on ethics and
corporate governance said that although Perzel might not now have an ethical
dilemma, that could change if the Cornell purchase is successful. As the
ranking House member, Perzel holds major sway over public policy, and is a
chief crafter of the state's $26 billion budget. As such, he has influence
over state spending while also serving on a board in an industry whose bottom
line depends on privatizing a governmental service: prisons. "It puts
him on two sides of the transaction," said Charles Elson, director of
the University of Delaware's Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance.
"If the acquisition goes through, he may want to rethink his board
service. It would be problematic." Al Bowman, Perzel's spokesman, said
the speaker did not know that Geo had bid for Cornell or that the Texas
company had state business. Bowman said that it was premature to discuss the
issue but that Perzel, in the event the bid is successful, would consult with
lawyers to determine his options on the board. "Whatever the conflicts
of interest may or may not be, they will be handled appropriately,"
Bowman said. In an interview in March, Perzel stressed that Geo didn't have
any state business in Pennsylvania and that there was no current legislation
before the House dealing with prison privatization. Even if there were, he
said, he would not abstain from voting, unless the bill pertains specifically
to Geo. "As a member of the board, I oversee the company. I don't write
the contracts," he said. "... Why would it be wrong for me to vote
to allow private prisons?" In June, Cornell announced that it was
putting itself on the auction block, and within the last two weeks, Geo made
a bid, a source familiar with the sale confirmed. Andy Merrill, a spokesman
for Cornell, declined to comment about the Geo bid or Perzel's potential
conflict, beyond what the company announced in June. Perzel, who was named to
the board in January 2005, was paid about $99,000 that year in stipends,
meeting fees and stock options. After learning of Perzel's role with Geo,
Rep. Michael McGeehan (D., Phila.) introduced a bill to bar legislators from
serving on corporate boards for pay - a prohibition similar to one for
members of Congress. Pennsylvania's rules governing conflicts of interests
are vague, leaving Perzel in the position to decide for himself
what he should do, said Peggy Kerns, the director of the Denver-based
National Conference of State Legislatures' Ethics Center. "He should
look at Pennsylvania's law and decide what his own ethical standards are and
then be prepared to justify his decision to the public," she said.

June
29, 2006 Philadelphia InquirerA bipartisan group of House members yesterday unveiled sweeping proposals
to restore the public's faith in the General Assembly and to give rank-and-file
legislators more power in the lawmaking process. The ideas range from
imposing term limits on committee chairs to rules prohibiting the
consideration of bills in the wee hours of the morning. In a separate news
conference an hour later, another House member, Rep. Michael McGeehan (D.,
Phila.), announced he was introducing legislation that would bar legislators
from serving on corporate boards for pay. Although McGeehan said the
legislation was not directed at any one person, it was clear that it was in
part prompted by House Speaker John M. Perzel (R., Phila.). As a director of
GEO Group Inc., a Florida-based company that runs private prisons, including
one in Delaware County, Perzel makes $20,000 a year, in addition to meeting
fees and stock options. McGeehan said he was basing his proposal on rules of
the U.S. House, which limits outside employment for congressmen. Without such
a restriction, McGeehan said, "it raises a question, a cloud in the
public's mind about our personal business and the peoples' business."
Beth Williams, Perzel's press secretary, said the speaker has not yet seen
the legislation and had no comment on it yesterday.

May
25, 2006 Pocono Record
Pennsylvania House Speaker John Perzel was out of town a week or so before
the Primary Election, when the Republican-led General Assembly declined to
vote on property tax reform legislation. Perzel was in Boca Raton, Florida,
attending a board meeting of the GEO Group Inc., of which he is a member. GEO
Group Inc. is a company that runs private prisons. Pennsylvania taxpayers pay
Perzel $108,724.46 a year. But the House Speaker bowed out of discussions
over property tax reform, an issue of vital concern to Pocono residents and
tax-strapped citizens elsewhere, so that he could serve a for-profit
corporation. He gets $20,000 from GEO for his services, as well as stock
options and other compensation for attending meetings. Pennsylvania imposes
no limits on its state lawmakers' outside income. The General Assembly was
conceived as a citizens legislature, after all, one
that would benefit from the temporary services of ordinary, committed
Pennsylvania residents who would conduct the state's business but ultimately
return to their civilian jobs. Ah, the good old days! Pennsylvania also has
no lobby disclosure law, so taxpayers have no way to determine whether GEO
Group Inc. is wining and dining their legislators with an eye toward picking
up operations at a county prison or a state penitentiary or two and running
them for a profit. Perzel also was among the chief architects of the
ill-fated pay raise that lawmakers passed without public hearing last summer,
then rescinded in November after a public outcry. Perzel's 34-percent raise
temporarily brought his salary to $145,553 per year. Many lawmakers opted to
return their extra pay once they voted to repeal the raise. Not Perzel. He
kept the money. He stands to gain at least $3,403 per year in his already
generous state pension thanks to that raise. Angry Pennsylvania voters bumped
the top two Republicans in the Senate in last week's primary. Maybe voters in
Perzel's district will vote him out in November, when he faces Democratic
challenger Tim Kearney, who received 2,426 votes in the primary to Perzel's
2,100. Perzel has been in the state House for 28 years. Given his recent
performance, voters are entitled to conclude that he is putting his own
interests ahead of his constituents'. It's time to sweep Perzel and others of
his ilk from the House.

May
12, 2006 The Tribune-DemocratBarb: Arrogance has toppled many a politician, and House Speaker John
Perzel wins an award for arrogance by skipping property-tax talks to attend a
company board meeting in Florida. Perzel, a Philadelphia Republican, gets
paid $20,000 a year plus stock options to serve on the board of GEO Group,
which runs prisons and residential-treatment facilities. GOP legislators,
meeting without their leader, ultimately postponed a vote on the legislation,
even though the Senate and the governor had supported it. Someone got their
money’s worth from Perzel last week, but it wasn’t state taxpayers.

May
11, 2006 Philadelphia Inquirer
A week after he missed a key session of the state House to attend a corporate
board meeting in Florida, Speaker John M. Perzel yesterday downplayed his
absence and defended his voting record. "I took a leave of absence for a
personal day... . My attendance record speaks for
itself," Perzel (R., Phila.) said. Since the legislative term started in
January 2005, Perzel has attended 82 of 86 voting days for a 95 percent attendance
record. The comments were Perzel's first on the topic since The Inquirer
reported that he missed 42 votes May 3 because he was attending the annual
meeting of Geo Group Inc., a Boca Raton-based company that runs private
prisons. He is one of seven members of the company's board of directors. That
day in Harrisburg was marked by a bill that didn't see a vote - legislation
to provide property-tax relief that had already passed the Senate. House
Majority Leader Sam Smith (R., Jefferson) postponed an expected vote on the
bill after hours of closed-door discussions in which Republican members said
it didn't provide enough tax relief. The move angered many Democratic
legislators and Gov. Rendell. Critics, including the head of a leading
government watchdog group, had said that by being in Florida on such a
crucial day, the speaker put his private affairs above his public duties.

May
5, 2006 Philadelphia InquirerWednesday's was one of the most important sessions the state House has
had in a long time - a day the chamber was expected to put the legislative
final stamp on a property tax relief plan years in the making. But as the
bill unexpectedly unraveled, people throughout the Capitol began to wonder:
Where's House Speaker John Perzel? Even his second in command, House Majority
Leader Sam Smith, who talked to him several times on the phone that day, said
he didn't know his whereabouts. Perzel (R., Phila.) was in Florida, preparing
for an entirely different kind of vote. He was attending corporate meetings of
GEO Group Inc., the Boca Raton company of which he is a board member. At
yesterday's annual meeting at the Boca Raton Resort & Club, where Perzel
was staying, shareholders of the publicly traded company voted to give him
another term on the board. The job pays $20,000 a year, plus stock options
and thousands of dollars more to attend meetings - including about $5,000 to
attend this week's. Through his spokesperson, Perzel declined to comment
yesterday. "It certainly seems the speaker's priorities are askew,"
said Barry Kauffman, executive director of Common Cause of Pennsylvania, a
government watchdog group. "The board he is most responsible to is
called the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. This is where his
priorities should have been. When asked Wednesday afternoon
about the speaker's whereabouts, his spokeswoman, Beth Williams, said he was
out of town on personal business. She would not elaborate. Pablo Paez, a
spokesman for GEO, confirmed that Perzel attended board meetings in Florida
over the last two days. Perzel, who makes $112,689 a year as speaker, was
appointed to the seven-member GEO Group board of directors in January 2005.
GEO runs 61 prisons and residential treatment facilities worldwide, including
the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Delaware County. GEO's contract
is up for renewal this year, and the county is interviewing three finalists,
including GEO, to operate the prison. In an interview with The Inquirer in
March, Perzel said he considered the seat on GEO's board "an opportunity
to see the real world, to see how business decisions are made and it gives me
experience there that I can use here." In addition to his $20,000
director's compensation, Perzel pocketed at least $20,000 last year for
attending board and special committee meetings. He also owns 2,700 shares of
GEO stock, corporate filings show.

December
4, 2005 Pittsburg Tribune
The Sunshine State seems to exert a magnetic-like pull on some of
Pennsylvania's most powerful politicians. State House Speaker John Perzel's district
is in Philadelphia, but you wouldn't immediately realize that by reviewing
property tax records in Palm Beach County, Fla. Those records indicate Perzel
and his wife, Sheryl, bought a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in
unincorporated land near Boca Raton in April. The sale price: $332,000. The
purchase occurred less than three months before Perzel helped shepherd
through the General Assembly sneaky pay raises of as much as 54 percent for
every legislator, the state judiciary and key state administrators. The cash
grab occurred without any public input or debate among lawmakers. Perzel was
among the legislative leaders who defended the raises with suspect
rationalizations. In January, Perzel was named a director of the GEO Group, a
company that manages many correctional facilities across the country. In
addition to his current $108,724 House speaker's salary, he will earn an
extra $20,000 this year for his GEO role. GEO board members also are paid
$1,500 for every board meeting they attend. The board convened 11 times
during fiscal 2004, according to federal Securities and Exchange Commission
filings. It's unclear how many directors' meetings
Perzel has attended. But thanks to his real estate purchase in April, he
shouldn't have had much difficulty getting to them. GEO board meetings are
held at its headquarters in -- you guessed it -- Boca Raton.

Pennsylvania
Supreme Court
GEO Group (formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections)February
12, 2003
A plurality of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled a county prison
board, that privatized its prison operation in 1995, is not considered a
statutory employer under the Worker's Compensation Act and, therefore, is not
immune to a negligence suit filed by an injured employee of the prison's
management firm. The crux of the majority opinion. The court
concluded the Delaware County Board of Prison Inspectors was not immune from
the suit because there existed no enforceable
contract between the board and the purported statutory employer, Delaware
County, which officially owns the prison. The responsibilities of the
board are stipulated only in enabling legislation conferred on the prison
board by the General Assembly. The decision, announced Jan. 2, affirms
a Commonwealth Court ruling in 2001 that reversed a trial court decision
finding the board was the statutory employer of the appellate and, thus,
immune from the suit. The suit originated from an incident involving
John Peck, a corrections officer at the Delaware County prison, who slipped
in a puddle of water and fell on Sept. 10, 1996, while he was employed with
the Wackenhut Corrections Corporation. Peck's fall caused injuries to
his left shoulder that necessitated two surgeries. He filed for a
worker's compensation claim against Wackenhut, which has managed the prison
since August 1995, and was awarded benefits. Peck also brought a
negligence suit against the prison board for failing to maintain the prison
in a safe condition. The Supreme Court's ruling is based on the finding
from McDonald that an entity cannot serve in a dual capacity as
"owner" and "employer." While the Delaware County
Board of Prison Inspectors maintained it is the prison's employer under
contract with the prison's owner, Delaware County, the court said this could
not stand without a contract between the two entities. (Pennsylvania
Law Weekly)

CITY COUNCILMAN Jim Kenney is demanding
that someone from the Nutter administration testify at his hearing on the
city's prison health-care contract and is threatening to subpoena the city or
withhold funding from the Law Department if the city doesn't cooperate. In a
letter to City Solicitor Shelley Smith on Friday, Kenney said that he was
"prepared to use all resources and powers available to me as a
councilperson" to compel the city to answer his questions about why
Corizon Health - fined for violating the city's minority-contracting rules
last summer and frequently criticized for poor care - is getting a new $42
million contract. Kenney's letter came after the Daily News reported that the
city will not provide a witness for the Feb. 27 hearing. Responding to
questions from an attorney representing a Corizon competitor that lost out on
the contract, Smith wrote in January that she would look into his complaints.
In the meantime, she wrote, the city would not make anyone available for
Kenney. Smith declined to comment for this story. "We will respond
directly to Councilman Kenney on this issue and not through the Daily
News," she wrote in an email Friday. Kenney, in his letter, wrote that
"City Council, the inmate population, as well as the public at large,
have a right to know how a vendor who fraudulently benefited from laws
established to assist legitimate minority-owned businesses, is awarded a
contract over a legitimate minority-owned local business." The
administration said that the other vendor, a smaller company called Correctional
Medical Care, was deemed inadequate to care for 8,600 city inmates.

January 09, 2013 By Sean Collins Walsh The Philadelphia Daily News
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — Philadeplphia's prison system is set to renew its
contract for providing inmate health care with a company that last year was
found to have violated the city's minority-participation requirements and has
been accused of neglecting patients in many states. Corizon, the largest
prison health-care company in the nation, recently agreed to a new $42 million
year-to-year deal for Philly's prison health care beginning in March,
although the contract has not been finalized. Now, before ink has touched
paper, a councilman is asking why the city is still doing business with a
questionable firm, and a rival company is asking why it didn't get the job
after offering to do it for less. In July, Corizon agreed to pay the city
$1.85 million after an investigation found that the company was using a sham
female-owned subcontractor to say it met city requirements for participation
by firms owned by minorities, women or disabled people. Corizon declined to
comment. Mayor Nutter's spokesman, Mark McDonald, said that the company has
reformed its practices for minority participation in Philadelphia and
elsewhere. He added that the prison health facilities have maintained
national accreditation under Corizon. Councilman Jim Kenney on Tuesday asked
the city to delay signing the contract so that Council can hold a public
hearing on the issue. By using a renewable one-year agreement, and not a
longer-term deal, he said, the administration avoided having the contract
reviewed by Council. "This is a way to get around City Council,"
Kenney said. "It's all being done behind the door." McDonald,
however, said that renewable contracts are standard and allow the city to
better manage the vendor. The new contract originally was to begin last
September, but was pushed back six months so that the city could evaluate
Corizon after resolving the settlement, McDonald said. Correctional Medical Care,
a Corizon rival owned by a woman, said that it placed a bid that would have
cost the city $3.5 million less per year and couldn't have started on the
original date. Its lawyers now are asking the city why it went out of its way
for Corizon when CMC was ready to go. McDonald said that CMC's offer,
although cheaper, was "deemed not to be up to the standard of care of
the prison system." The Philadelphia Prison System, which has about
9,000 inmates, did not return requests for comment. Corizon donated $1,000 to
Mayor Nutter's campaign committee in April, according to city records. Prison
Health Services, which merged with another company to form Corizon in 2011,
had donated $5,000 to Nutter in 2008. PHS also had given Kenney $1,000 in
2010 and $500 in 2007. Corizon has run into serious issues in recent years,
including a class-action lawsuit on behalf of Idaho inmates that alleged
extreme cases of negligent care over 30 years. The Tennessee-based company
also has been probed in Vermont and other states.

August 28, 2012 Philadelphia Daily News
TONY WILLIAMS felt his leg snap when he jumped off a top bunk in a
Philadelphia prison cell two years ago and landed awkwardly on the concrete
floor. But a prison doctor called the injury a sprain and sent him back to his
cell. That misdiagnosis of a broken leg was just the beginning. Williams,
incarcerated for a parole violation, was made to wait weeks for treatments,
didn't receive rehabilitation after surgery and was repeatedly ignored when
he complained of pain, according to a suit he has filed against the city and
Corizon, a for-profit private firm that provides health care to the city's
roughly 9,047 inmates. "Trying to see a doctor is like trying to get
out," said Williams, 30, who needs a brace and
a cane because his leg didn't heal properly. According to a doctor's review
ordered by his attorney, Williams' injuries are "both serious and
permanent." Williams is one of many who have filed suit against Corizon
- a Tennessee-based firm formerly known as Prison Health Services - over the
years. But city officials say they are satisfied with the service. And
Corizon is looking to keep its multimillion-dollar contract, which recently
expired, with the city. "We do offer the same range of services someone
would get in the community," said Prison Commissioner Louis Giorla, who
said he didn't know the particulars of Williams' case. "In correctional
health care, the level of complaints is very high." Corizon last month
paid a $1.8 million fine to the city for allegedly skirting
minority-participation guidelines, but worked out a deal that preserved the
right to bid on contracts. The previous contract expired, but the city
granted an extension to Corizon while it seeks bids. Giorla said the new
contract will be issued soon. A spokesman for Corizon declined to make anyone
available for an interview, saying in a statement that the firm wanted to
stay out of the media during the contracting process and does not comment on
pending litigation. "What we can say is that our caregivers work hard
every day to provide quality, compassionate care to our patients in the
Philadelphia Prison System," spokesman Brian Fulton said. Since 1995,
the firm has been paid $196 million by the city for providing medical and
pharmacy service. That includes hiring doctors and nurses, assessing inmates,
doing sick calls and providing medication. The local complaints over Corizon
- which provides prison health care to 345,000 inmates in 29 states - are not
unique. A recent court-ordered report in Idaho blasted Corizon, saying a poor
quality of care constituted "cruel and unusual punishment" -
allegations the company disputed. Attorney Geoffrey Seay, who represents
Williams, said he has seven current or pending suits against Corizon and the
city. "There is a pattern of negligence," he said. "They're
not getting the proper evaluation, the proper treatment." The city has
paid out at least $1 million since 1995 to settle suits brought by former
inmates over medical care, according to the city law department. Among the
biggest settlements was $300,000 paid to a man who never received needed eye
surgery while in prison and went blind in one eye. When a suit is settled,
Corizon typically pays additional damages to the victim, the city said.
Corizon's contract with Philadelphia was terminated for several months in
2002 after complaints from prison advocates about a diabetic inmate, who died
in 2000 after missing insulin treatment. But the city ultimately signed with
Corizon again, citing affordability and pledging oversight. Experts agree
that prison health care is a challenge that requires catering to a growing
population that often has serious health concerns like chronic illness and
drug addiction. Ballooning costs have led many cities and states to outsource
health care. But prison advocates caution that you get what you pay for.
"I think we need to start with the proposition that if it sounds too
good to be true it probably is. The private providers say they can do the
same job, do as good a job, save money and generate profits for their
shareholder," said David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties
Union National Prison Project. "If they're going to try to do it more
cheaply and at the same time generate a profit, they are going to cut
corners." Officials said that outside monitors visit the prisons twice a
year and that the facilities meet national accreditation standards. Bruce
Herdman, chief of medical operations for the prisons, said the full-time
medical staff makes 145,000 sick-call visits every year. Still, former inmate
Lisa Holland says she didn't get adequate treatment during a recent jail
stint. Holland, 46, was arrested July 12 on drug charges. Seay, who also
represents Holland, said she is innocent but got taken into custody because
her son was arrested for drugs. When Holland was arrested, she wasn't
permitted to take a dose of the morphine she needs to manage severe pain she
has struggled with since a 2000 car accident damaged her spine and crushed
her leg. By the time she got to prison, she was in severe withdrawal,
vomiting and defecating. She said it was four days before a doctor sent her
to the hospital. "Every shift, every person I asked to take me to the
hospital. I laid on the floor soiling my
clothes," said Holland, who plans to sue Corizon and the city.
"They treated me like a dog. They made me feel terrible." Giorla
said the prisons deal with a large number of substance-addicted people who
experience withdrawal. He said inmates receive a medical evaluation to see if
they need medications. "If it's therapeutic and it's necessary and
there's no substitution, we'll provide it. If it's not necessary, we won't
provide it," he said. Civil-rights attorney David Rudovsky said private
health care in prisons requires substantial oversight. "Whether it's
Corizon or [Prison Health Services] or a new provider, in my experience, the
problems of inadequate medical care [will continue] unless the city provides
an adequate amount of money, the provider has some integrity, and there's
some very detailed oversight," he said.

July
26, 2012 Miami Herald
Florida prison vendor agrees to hefty fine in Pa. case The company awaiting
final approval from Gov. Rick Scott's administration to privatize health care
services for most Florida prison inmates has agreed to pay a $1.85 million
fine in Philadelphia for skirting minority contracting requirements. The
vendor, Prison Health Services, now known as Corizon Health, is accused of
falsifying official documents and federal prosecutors are looking for
evidence of mail and wire fraud. News accounts in Philadelphia newspapers
report that the city's inspector general, Amy Kurland, as describing the
arrangement as a classic "pass-through" in which health care for
city jail inmates was subcontracted to JHK Inc,., a female-owned business in
Indiana that handled pharmaceutical supplies. The company said it had
permission from prison employees for the arrangement. Philadelphia Mayor
Michael Nutter called the city's settlement with the company"a
significant moment that sends a very, very strong message to everyone who
does business with the city," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. As the
story was breaking in Philadelphia, Scott's Department of Corrections was
formally asking the Legislature for approval to shift $58 million in health
care funds across categories so that it can hire Corizon and a second private
vendor, Wexford Health Sources, by January 2013.

May
29, 2001
When Teresa Dorsey, mother of two and a hospital employee, drove past the old
North Philadelphia factory, she often wondered what the workmen were
doing. The rumor was that the ancient hulk in this industrial
brownfield on 17th Street near Cambria might be transformed into a community
center. Last Monday evening, she and dozens of her neighbors learned the
answer. The Philadelphia Prison system is set to open in mid-June a
232-bed prison for minimum and medium security female inmates who will get
job training skills as they near their release date. "The city
went about this in an underhanded and secretive way," said Dorsey, who
after the meeting gathered 125 signatures from neighbors telling the Street
administration that they hadn't known anything about the prison.
Indeed, the flier announcing last Monday's meeting referred to a
"residential treatment program for women" and made no reference to
a prison. Prison Commissioner Thomas Costello swallowed some crow
yesterday, saying, "The prison system was probably remiss on
this." Liberty Management found an old factory building in an area
zoned for industry and, according to the city code, for prisons. There
was no required zoning hearing at which the public could protest. he Nicoletti family, which owns Liberty Management, signed
a contract with the Rendell administration in late 1999, calling for the city
to pay $27.50 per inmate per day with a guarantee of at least 200
inmates. Nicoletti family members are also major contributors to
Rendell and other pols. Rose Williams, who lives on Tucker near 15th
and Lehigh, said, "Usually when stuff is done under cover, it's not good
for the general public." (Daily News)

Philipsburg, Pennsylvania
Cornell
December 16, 2002Northwest of town is the patch of
reclaimed strip mine that heavy equipment

But the ground sits vacant.What looked like an employment bonanza, so big that it drew 6,100
employment-seekers between two job fairs, has been in a three-year

stall,
a high-level impasse over the constitutional propriety of a private company
holding prisoners in Pennsylvania.Behind closed doors, a stalemate has broken, and negotiators are
molding an accord, said Rep. John Peterson, the Venango County Republican who
inherits this area next month through reapportionment."I don't know if we'll have anything
in time for Christmas," said Peterson, who joined Sen. Rick Santorum,
R-Pa., in trying to shepherd an agreement that would let Cornell proceed with
construction. "It's been brighter recently.""I think we're very close. Whether
it's a week or the end of the

month, I don't know," Cornell
spokesman Paul Doucette said. "We've made significant progress in the
last six months. ... We've moved the ball by several orders of
magnitude."But near Philipsburg,
Cornell plans a Pennsylvania first.

The company wouldn't simply sell its services to help government
operate a prison. It would own and run the lockup, taking inmates assigned by
the federal government and housing them in three compounds.But either way, he said, the Bureau of
Prisons would honor the contract to send 1,000 inmates.Cornell would provide everything from
medical care to special discipline and employ the guards who, in turn, could
employ deadly force when things went awry.On that central point, in 1999, state Attorney General Mike Fisher dug
in his heels against Cornell and the federal Bureau of Prisons, the agency
that hired Cornell to

build the prison.Nothing in state law says a private company
or anyone but

government can hold prisoners, Fisher
insisted.Nothing in state law says
they can't, Cornell replied.Cornell
created some of that problem itself, trumpeting the project -- $14.53 an hour
for guards, 40 percent above the average wage here -- before checking for
legal stumbling blocks, said Sen. John Wozniak, D-Johnstown, a supporter of
the prison project.It's uncertain
where Fisher, the federal Bureau of Prisons and Cornell stand now on the
legality of privately operated prisons. Like many of the elements of the
shrouded negotiations, it's being kept secret.Doucette said one solution that won't be
used was a proposed

resolution placed on the table early in the
talks: Attempting to turn the prison complex into a federal enclave that
could be shielded from state laws.Cornell's local support wasn't unanimous, though.The plan gathered critics who said local
government and environmental regulators were allowing Cornell to rush
headlong into doing ecological harm, a dispute that critics lost when they
took it to the federal district court in Johnstown.Statewide, opposition built in some corners
of organized labor over Cornell's plans to use nonunion guards.
(Post-Gazette.com)

October
17, 2005 The Daily Item
The Snyder County prison board has received a verbal agreement that a food
service company will continue feeding inmates through the end of the year.
The board's one-year contract with Aramark expired Oct. 1, but the county is
presently engaged in a legal battle with the Teamsters Union regarding last
year's hiring of the independant food provider. The issue came about last
fall when the prison board decided to eliminate staff at the prison who had been preparing meals and hire the company with an
aim of saving about $100,000 a year. The union filed a grievance, claiming
the county violated the labor relations law by cutting eight union positions.
The grievance was upheld by the State Labor Relations Board, but now the
county is appealing. Pending the appeal, the county approached Aramark about
continuing to provide three meals daily even after its contract ended.

March
31, 2005 The Daily Item
Six months after the Snyder County prison board made a cost-cutting move
replacing four union employees with a food-service company, the state labor board
has ordered the county to reinstate the workers. Teamsters Local 764, which
represents the prison employees, charged the county with unfair labor
practices for hiring Aramark Food Service to provide meals to inmates in
place of four union kitchen employees. The prison board inked a one-year
contract with Aramark Oct. 1, claiming the outside contractor would save the
county about $100,000 a year. The union sought to keep the four employees on
the payroll, but county officials said Aramark had its own employees. Citing
the single meeting between the union and prison board on the matter, the
labor board found "no evidence" the two parties engaged in
mediation and determined the county failed to "bargain in good
faith." In its ruling, the labor board ordered the county to rescind the
contract with Aramark, restore the food service work to the union, rehire the
four employees and pay them lost wages and benefits.

February 10, 2005 Daily ItemPolice
clad in riot gear were called Tuesday night to assist Snyder County Jail
corrections officers in dealing with 13 hungry and angry inmates who refused
to return to their cells until they received more food. The prisoners,
federal and out-of-county inmates, were in the recreation room Tuesday
evening when they became upset that the commissary failed to arrive on time,
Warden George Nye said. When prison staff tried to move them back to their
cells, he said, 13 inmates refused to budge. About 15 police equipped in full
riot gear showed up at the facility at 600 Old Colony Road. Nye said
negotiations with the prisoners began immediately. The main request from the
inmates was for sandwiches, he said. "They were hungry and angry because
they didn’t get the commissary," the warden said, referring to food
items prisoners are allowed to buy with their own money. Sandwiches were made
and brought in for each protesting inmate. Afterward, the inmates returned to
their cells without injury to anyone involved or damage to the facility, Nye
said. The incident lasted about four hours, he said.The extra food was a
concession the warden was willing to oblige. Nye conceded the inmates had
received substantial meals before Aramark Food Services took over the kitchen
a few months ago and began serving daily meals of 3,000 calories. The switch
is saving the county about $100,000 a year. "We had a heck of a menu
before," Nye said. Inmates "don’t get the extras, like ice cream,
that they used to get." Teamsters
representative Donnie Deivert said budget cutbacks are putting the
corrections officers he represents at risk.

South Mountain
Secure Treatment Unit
South Mountain, Pennsylvania
CornellMay
4, 2006 The Record HeraldThe Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare's Office of Children, Youth
and Family will take over management the South Mountain Secure Treatment Unit
for juvenile offenders on South Mountain Road starting July 1. The move also
affects residents from the South West Secure Treatment Unit in Torrance,
which is closing, according to Stacey Ward, spokesman for DPW. They will be moved
to South Mountain. “One of the things we look at every year is fiscal
responsibility. Occupancy was an issue,” Ward said. The South Mountain
facility was maintaining an 80 percent occupancy rate. There are now 27
residents in the 52-bed facility that has been managed by Cornell Companies
Inc. since 1997. “Through combining the two, we'll be at almost 98 percent,”
she added. The secure treatment units house more aggressive and difficult
court-adjudicated juveniles who have experienced difficulty adjusting to
other placements and have extensive placement histories. The state also is
hoping to absorb as many of the 71 Cornell employees at South Mountain as
possible, she said. “We have heard from a lot of them and they are interested
in staying. They become so committed to these kids, they want to stay,” added
Ward.

February
23, 2012 Erie-Times News
An Erie County jury has awarded a Philadelphia man $312,000 for injuries he
suffered while he was imprisoned in the State Correctional Institution at
Albion. With the verdict, the panel found that the private health-care
provider in the prison, Prison Health Services Inc., was negligent in the
care it provided inmate Derrick Jones, also known as Derrick Alexander, after
he first broke his ankle and then, while still in a cast, fell down a flight
of stairs in 2006. Jones, 41, obtained medical tests upon his release from
prison in 2008, which confirmed he had suffered herniated discs and
knee-ligament tears as a result of the events in prison. He will suffer
lifelong complications from the injuries, which, experts said, were not
properly treated while Jones was in custody. The trial was held in Judge John
Garhart's courtroom. The verdict returned Friday by the jury awarded $400,000
in damages; however, the panel found Jones was 22 percent responsible for the
injuries. It is not known if Prison Health Services plans to appeal.

Dallas, Pennsylvania
MHM Correctional Services, Prison Health Services
February 25, 2010 Times LeaderThe parents of a convicted murderer who committed suicide at the state
Correctional Institution at Dallas have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against
prison officials, 10 guards, two companies that provide prison health
services and state Department of Corrections officials. Among the allegations
in the lawsuit filed on behalf of Robert and Phyllis Bullock, of Dallas, is
that corrections officers taunted their son, Matthew Lee Bullock, provided
the means to commit suicide – a bed sheet he used to hang himself – and
encouraged him to do so. A Luzerne County jury found Bullock guilty of
third-degree murder but mentally ill in the strangulation death of
33-year-old Lisa Hargrave, who was 22 weeks pregnant, in the couple’s
Wilkes-Barre apartment on Jan. 1, 2003. The jury also found Bullock guilty of
involuntary manslaughter but mentally ill for the death of the fetus. The
lawsuit, filed in Luzerne County Court and transferred on Wednesday to U.S.
District Court, details Bullock’s extensive mental health history, including
11 psychiatric disorders and more than 20 documented suicide attempts in the
10 years prior to his incarceration. Despite a court order that he was to be
housed at a secure mental health facility for the needed treatment period,
Bullock was confined in various state prisons, where he attempted suicide in
May 2007, January 2008 and May 2009, the suit
states. Bullock told staff at SCI Dallas on July 31, 2009 that he was
“stressed” because his victim was related to a prison employee and that he
was hearing voices, and he also cut the inside of his wrists on that date,
the suit states. Despite all that, Bullock’s psychiatric medication was decreased
and he was placed in a Restricted Housing Unit (RHU), which is not designed
for confinement and treatment of the mentally ill, the suit states.

State Correctional Institution,
Greensburg
Greensburg, Pennsylvania
CiviGenicsDecember
14, 2007 AP
A former drug and alcohol counselor at the State Correctional
Institution-Greensburg must register as a sex offender under Megan's Law.
That provision has been added to the probation sentence 42-year-old Tina
Martinez of Donora received for performing a sex act on a convicted murderer
at the prison. Ms. Martinez worked for Civigenics, a private Massachusetts
company that contracted with the state Department of Corrections. She was
fired after the sex occurred in 2006. Martinez was sentenced to six months' probation
in September. The Megan's Law provision was added by a judge yesterday. She
must register as a sex offender with state police for the next 10 years.

September
15, 2007 Tribune-Review
A Westmoreland County jury deliberated about three hours on Friday before
finding a former drug and alcohol counselor guilty of having a sexual
relationship with an inmate at the state prison in Hempfield. After two days
of testimony and closing arguments yesterday morning, the six-man, six-woman
jury convicted Tina Martinez, 42, of Donora in Washington County, of a felony
charge of institutional sexual assault. Martinez was sentenced by
Westmoreland County Judge Debra A. Pezze to serve six months on probation.
She had faced a maximum penalty of seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine.
Pezze said the sentence was within standard guidelines for someone with no
prior criminal record, which was the case with Martinez. "Society is a
victim and in a way this activity can threaten the safety and security of
staff and other inmates," said Westmoreland County Assistant District
Attorney Mike Pacek. Prison officials said the sexual behavior between
Martinez and the inmate could lead to other problems, such as blackmail of
the lockup's staff, contraband being brought into the facility or even riots.
Capt. Richard Bell, SCI Greensburg's intelligence officer and lead
investigator in the Martinez case, said her prosecution was a signal to
others who work with state prison inmates. "We must preserve the
professionalism and integrity of the institutions," Bell said. Martinez
was accused of having oral sex with a 30-year-old inmate who was serving a
portion of his 8- to 20-year third-degree murder sentence at the State
Correctional Institution at Greensburg for killing a Pennsylvania drug dealer
in 1998. The inmate, who is not being identified by the Tribune-Review
because he is a victim of a sexual assault, said Martinez was the aggressor
in the relationship that was conducted in April and May 2006. Martinez, who
worked as a drug and alcohol counselor for a private company that contracted
with the state Department of Corrections, contended she initially started up
a friendship with the inmate and felt compelled to yield to his sexual
advances for fear that she would lose her job. Defense attorney Lou Anne
Demosky asked jurors to acquit Martinez because she never voluntarily
consented to having sexual relations with the inmate. "She's guilty of
being stupid but she's not guilty of this crime," Demosky said. Martinez
worked for Civigenics, a Massachusetts company that provides drug and alcohol
counseling services to inmates in prisons throughout the country. Demosky
said Martinez was fired from her job, which she had held since December 2005.

August
24, 2006 The Tribune-ReviewA drug and alcohol counselor faces criminal charges after allegedly
having sexual encounters with an inmate at the State Correctional Institution
at Greensburg. Tina Martinez, 42, of McKean Avenue, Donora, Washington
County, is charged with one count of institutional sexual assault. According
to a criminal complaint, Martinez was employed as a drug and alcohol
counselor with Civigenics, of Massachusetts, at the time of the alleged
assaults in April and May. The state pays Civigenics to provide drug and
alcohol treatment services to inmates, said Angie Marhefka, spokeswoman at
the Hempfield Township prison. Civigenics treats 50 males at the prison,
according to the company's Web site. It also offers programs at state prisons
in Albion, Graterford and Somerset. The alleged victim, 29, told
investigators he was performing janitorial duties in the therapy rooms when
Martinez assaulted him. According to the complaint, Martinez fondled him and
engaged in oral sex with him.

State Correctional Institution,
Laurel Highlands
Berks County, Pennsylvania
Prison Health Services
July 23, 2007 Reading EagleSixty-year-old Robert J. Martinolich asked a Berks County judge Monday to
temporarily release him from a life sentence for killing a couple in
Ruscombmanor Township in 1969 so he can receive treatment for back problems.
“Without an operation, I will be completely paralyzed,” Martinolich told
Judge Jeffrey K. Sprecher. “I need to have the surgery, and I need it
immediately.” Martinolich, formerly of Selden, N.Y., claimed he is not
receiving proper medical care at the State Correctional Institution at Laurel
Highlands, Somerset County. “The medical treatment is so grossly incompetent
and inadequate,” Martinolich said. Laurel Highlands houses 1,000 inmates and
provides special services for elderly prisoners and those with medical
problems. Martinolich asked Sprecher to order the state prison to release him
to a hospital until he recovers. Sprecher said he would appoint an attorney
to represent Martinolich and ordered him returned to Laurel Highlands.

June 12, 2007 Republican HeraldAn inmate at State Correctional Institution/Mahanoy has sued the state
Department of Corrections and the prison’s health provider, alleging
incorrect treatment left him with burns. In a nine-page lawsuit filed Friday
in Schuylkill County Court, Willie Riddick alleged the selenium sulfate
prescribed for his facial skin condition burned his face and neck. Riddick,
who filed the lawsuit himself, is seeking unspecified monetary damages
exceeding $20,000 against the department, Prison Health Services Inc.,
Tennessee, the prison’s health care provider, Marsha Modery, a PHS employee,
and Marva Cerullo, the prison’s health care administrator. He did not demand
a jury trial. He alleged that he was taken several times in 2003 to Good
Samaritan Regional Medical Center for an examination by a dermatologist. The
dermatologist prescribed plexion cleanser and tazorac cream for the
condition, and specified no substitutions for the medications, according to
the lawsuit. However, on Sept. 23, 2005, Modery prescribed selenium sulfate,
which caused the burns, the lawsuit reads in part. Riddick alleged he went to
sick call at the prison, and the medication was changed back to plexion
cleanser, with triple antibiotic ointment given to him for his burns. Riddick
said he filed a grievance, but that Cerullo denied it, saying the burns were
a rash, and her determination was upheld on appeal to higher prison authorities.
He alleged he was injured, and those injuries cause several ill effects.
“Plaintiff has suffered, among other things, painful burns on his face and
upper neck which he will have to live with for the rest of his life,”
according to the lawsuit. Riddick also alleged he will have to undergo
corrective surgery and continuing care once he is freed from prison. Modery
and Cerullo are liable for his injuries because they did not exercise proper
care in treating him, did not obtain and adequate history and did not warn
him of the risk of selenium sulfate, Riddick alleged. PHS is liable because
it failed to train its personnel properly and imposed budget constraints that
limited treatment options, Riddick alleged. The department is liable for the
actions of PHS employees because they provide care at its SCI/Mahanoy
facility, according to the lawsuit.

State Correctional Institution, Muncy
Muncy, Pennsylvania
Wexford Health Sources
May 12, 2005 Wilkes Barre Times Herald
The family of a Wilkes-Barre woman who suffered a fatal asthma attack while
in prison will receive $2.15 million in a settlement of a lawsuit against the
state Department of Corrections and a health care provider. Erin Finley, 26,
died on Aug. 29, 2002 after medical personnel at the State Correctional
Institution at Muncy ignored her repeated pleas for help, according to a
federal lawsuit filed by her mother, Christine Thomas of Wilkes-Barre.
Evidence uncovered by Thomas’ attorney, Dan Brier of Scranton, showed Finley
desperately sought medical care for severe asthma she had had since she was a
child, but she was repeatedly rejected based on a prison doctor’s belief that
she was “faking” her symptoms. The
federal suit, filed in June 2003, alleged employees of SCI Muncy and its
health care provider, Wexford Heath Sources Inc., showed a “callous and
deliberate” indifference for Finley. Finley continued to have problems breathing
and on July 27 wrote another request, asking a different physician to see her
“as soon as possible.” “My asthma is so bad and Dr. Bardell says I am faking
it. I don’t know what else to do,” the request stated. On the morning of her
death, Finley phoned her mother in a hysterical state, saying she could not
breathe. At around noon she was directed to go to the infirmary, where a physician’s
assistant examined her. The assistant told Bardell that Finley needed to go
to the hospital, but he refused to see her and left the prison at 2:40 p.m.
Twenty minutes later, Finley lost consciousness and stopped breathing. She
was transported to an area hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 4:11
p.m.

Temple University has completed
its review of an ethics complaint on a study conducted by two professors that
described economic savings from private prisons - without disclosing that
they had received funding from the prison industry. The university, however,
will not disclose the findings or say whether any action was taken against
the authors. "It's a personnel matter," Brandon Lausch, a Temple
spokesman, said Wednesday. "I can't go into details." He said the
examination was concluded July 2. "They are fairly close-mouthed about
their investigation," said Alex Friedmann, managing editor of the Prison
Legal News and associate director of the Human Rights Defense Center, who
filed the ethics complaint with Temple in June 2013. He alleged that when
economics professors Simon Hakim and Erwin Blackstone released a working
paper in April 2013, they did not properly disclose that they had received
financial support from private prison operators, including the
Nashville-based Corrections Corp. of America, the nation's largest private
corrections company. In op-ed newspaper articles, the professors wrote that
their research had found that privately run prisons worked as well as or
better than government-run institutions and could provide long-term savings
to taxpayers of 12 percent to 58 percent. Neither of the longtime Temple
faculty members could be reached for comment Wednesday. Friedmann said he
received a letter this month from Michele Masucci, Temple's interim senior
vice provost for research, informing him that she had completed her review of
his complaint. She said the university would "address its conclusions,
including any action" to Hakim and Blackstone individually. Masucci told
Friedmann that the professors' working paper had been withdrawn and was no
longer widely available, and that the research had received no university
grant money. Last month, Hakim and Blackstone told an Inquirer reporter that
they had been conducting similar research for decades and always disclose
funding sources when they publish their final report. Lausch, the Temple spokesman,
said the final version of their report, "Prison Break, A New Approach to
Public Cost and Safety," was published last month by the nonprofit
Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. The report says the study was funded
in part by the private corrections industry. ColorOfChange, an online civil
rights organization based in Oakland, which recently mounted a campaign in
support of Friedmann's ethics complaint, said Wednesday that nearly 25,000 of
its members had sent e-mails to Temple.

Jan 13, 2014 philadelphiaweekly.com

When Alex Friedmann, the editor of
Prison Legal News, read Temple University’s Center for Competitive
Government’s press release last spring touting a new study regarding the
benefits of private prisons, he was a bit surprised. The study found that
private, contracted prisons have a “long-run savings of 12
percent to 58 percent when comparing private and public” prison facilities,
and they are able to “generate significant savings without sacrificing
quality.” Friedmann, himself a former prisoner in a private facility, was
perplexed because every other study he’d reviewed on the topic — including
reports from Arizona’s auditor general and the U.S. Bureau of Justice
Assistance — had found otherwise. Then he came to the very last line of Temple’s
press release, which noted, in part: “The study received funding by members
of the private corrections industry.” As the social-justice magazine In These
Times points out on Friday, that little detail “inspired questions, to say
the least.” Friedman filed an ethics complaint with Temple with the Human
Rights Defense Center in June. It’s a clear problem, he tells Philadelphia
Weekly, when the private prison industry (or any industry) funds academia for
its own purposes. In an email, he cites other sporadic instances where it’s
happened: “A Vanderbilt study in 2008, a Harvard Law Review article in 2002,
various reports by the Reason Foundation — all funded by or connected with
the private prison industry,” he says. “I wouldn’t call it a trend, but rather
an ongoing, deliberate strategy by private prison companies to solicit and
fund research that supports their talking points. This is akin to the Tobacco
Institute funding research that found smoking isn’t bad for you, doesn’t
cause cancer, etc.” Industry-funded studies, he notes, “provide a veneer of
respectability — an academic gloss — to the self-serving claims of private
prison companies, such as cost savings and competence, when the realities of
prison privatization demonstrate otherwise.” Friedmann says he tries to send
Michele Masucci, Temple’s Vice Provost for Research, an email regarding his
complaint “about once a month.” Masucci responded to In These Times’ inquiry
about the complaint: “In order to protect the integrity of the review process
including the rights of all individuals involved, we cannot share the status
of ongoing investigations.”

Three Mile Island
WackenhutOctober 22, 2004 York Daily RecordAbout
five miles from the gates of Three Mile Island, a Lancaster County resident found
two unloaded, semi-automatic rifles housed within a hard case. The weapons
case fell Wednesday afternoon from the rear of a truck driven by a TMI
security officer while en route to the plant along Route 441 in Conoy
Township, said Ralph DeSantis, a spokesman for AmerGen Energy, which runs
Three Mile Island. The officer had returned from an
offsite firing range about 15 miles from TMI when plant officials noticed
that the truck's tailgate was down and the guns were missing. The plant and
Wackenhut Corp. are conducting an investigation to figure out how the
firearms got from the back of a TMI security truck onto Route 441, DeSantis
said. Early Wednesday, the TMI security guard and one other officer, both
employed by Wackenhut Corp., traveled to the offsite firing range with the
weapons. Both officers are weapons instructors and train other Wackenhut
guards stationed at TMI. Only the instructors are authorized to transport the
weapons, DeSantis said. The case fell
from the back of the truck and landed alongside Route 441 when the officers
were on their way back to the plant.

ERIE, Pennsylvania — A woman is
suing the health services provider at a western Pennsylvania county prison
claiming a doctor and other medical staff didn't properly respond to her
complaints of pain and bleeding after she fought with another inmate while
pregnant, resulting in her son being stillborn. Officials with
Pittsburgh-based Wexford Health Sources didn't immediately respond to an
email requesting comment after hours Friday on the lawsuit filed by Tiffany
Pollitt and Brian Camp Sr. of Erie. The couple alleges their son, Brian Jr.,
was stillborn in August 2009, several days after Pollitt says she was hit in
the abdomen by another inmate while she was nearly eight months pregnant at
the Westmoreland County Prison. The lockup about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh
and it employees are not named in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Erie.

March
3, 2006 Tribune-Review
A federal judge has ruled against Westmoreland County and a company
previously hired to run the local jail in a lawsuit filed by the family of a
Sewickley Township man who committed suicide while behind bars in 2003. The ruling
means the lawsuit can go forward. Westmoreland County, Cornell Companies Inc.
and NaphCare Inc. had asked U.S. District Court Judge William L. Standish to
dismiss the lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed last year by Renee L. Wright, who
contends the county and prison officials acted recklessly by not preventing
the April 18, 2003, suicide of her brother, Robert R. Steadman. Steadman, 33,
hanged himself in his cell four days after he was incarcerated for failing to
make a payment as ordered by a family court judge. Prison officials kept him
in a regular cell even though he had been put on suicide watch during a
previous jail stint four months earlier. In the lawsuit, his family contends
that county and prison officials should have placed Steadman on suicide watch
in a special unit with enhanced surveillance during his incarceration in
April because he had been deemed a suicide risk only months before. The
Steadman suicide was one of several at the county jail in recent years. The
lawsuit cites three other inmate suicides that occurred between 2000 and
2003. A fourth inmate took his own life in 2004. In the aftermath of the
Steadman case, the county cited financial reasons for replacing Cornell, took
over management of the prison, and revised its policy regarding how it deals
with potential suicide risks.

July 15, 2005 Tribune-Review
A former inmate at the Westmoreland County Prison claims in a federal lawsuit
that he needs a liver transplant because of substandard medical care he
received while an inmate there. Harvey C. Roupe Jr., 45, who now lives in
Washington, Washington County, alleges in a civil rights complaint filed in
U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh that repeated pleas to prison and county
officials for permission to continue special treatments he needed for a
pre-existing liver disease and hepatitis C in 2002 and 2003 were ignored.
Roupe claims his right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment under the
Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was violated. Listed as defendants
in the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, are Westmoreland County; the
prison; Cornell Corrections Inc., the private company that formerly operated
the prison; the prison's former warden, Michael Millward; and Cornell's
former medical supervisor, William Nicholson. Lisa Tauser, of Houston-based
Cornell Corrections, said it is the company's policy not to comment on
pending litigation. After a two-year contract with Cornell to operate the
prison expired in May 2003, county commissioners decided to return to an
in-house warden system to save money.

August
5, 2003
Three days after suddenly ending his sex assault trial with a guilty plea,
32-year-old Marc Filippino ended his life Monday morning at Westmoreland
County Prison. Filippino, formerly of Monroeville, faced a seven- to
20-year prison term for rape and assault. He ended his trial last week by
pleading guilty to burglary, aggravated indecent assault, aggravated assault
and making terroristic threats in a July 2001 case involving a Unity Township
woman in her home. Filippino acted as his own attorney, insisting he be
allowed to question his accuser himself. The court heard several hours of
testimony, but before Filippino began cross-examining the Unity Township
woman he asked Westmoreland County Judge Richard McCormick Jr. to reinstate
his attorney. He then pleaded guilty. Filippino faced additional
charges for a Penn Township rape, but that trial had not been scheduled. He
was convicted a year ago for two other assaults and sentenced to 2 1/2 to
five years in jail. Deputy Coroner Joe Musgrove said Filippino was seen
alive at a 7 a.m. security check at the prison. Another inmate spotted his
body hanging in his one-man cell five minutes later. "He knotted his
shoelaces and affixed them to an air register above the sink ... a good seven
feet up. He put that around his neck and asphyxiated himself," the
coroner said. Filippino was declared dead at 8:08 a.m. County
detectives and the coroner are investigating, Musgrove said. The hanging was
the fifth suicide at the Westmoreland County facility since 2001.
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

April
21, 2003
A 33-year-old inmate used his shoelaces to hang himself at the Westmoreland
County Prison early Friday morning. Robert R. Steadman, of Hutchinson,
had been in the county lockup since April 14 on charges related to a domestic
dispute. It was the second hanging death this year at the prison in
Hempfield Township. (Tribune-Review)

April
18, 2003
Westmoreland County wants to hire a warden to run its prison again. The
county fired its own warden and hired Cornell Corrections of Houston, Texas,
to run the county prison two years ago after a scandal that involved inmates
selling drugs with the help of some guards. Yesterday, two of the
county commissioners said the county will not sign a new pact with Cornell,
whose current contract will expire May 31. Instead, the county will
advertise this weekend for a new warden. Commissioners Tom Balya and
Tom Ceraso said the decision was made for financial reasons. "If
we can save $200,000 in the management of the prison, I think we're going to
take that step," Balya said. Ceraso, chairman of the county prison
board, said it was not necessary to take any formal action because the
Cornell contract will expire automatically. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazzete)

November
13, 2002
The crowding at the Westmoreland County Prison has grown worse in the past
month, Warden Mike Millward said yesterday. Millward told the county
Prison Board the population had climbed from 530 inmates in early October to
561 yesterday. That, Millward said, is 45 more than capacity, but
prison officials have been able to deal with the problem. A little more
than a year ago there were enough empty beds in the prison that county
officials marketed the facility to federal authorities and other counties in
an attempt to make some more money. Yesterday, only 11 out-of-county
prisoners remained there, Millward said. (Post-Gazette.com)

October 8, 2002
Two Westmoreland County commissioners said Monday that the company hired last
year to run the jail is not making enough money and should be replaced.
Tom Ceraso and P.Scott Conner said the experiment of converting the prison to
private management while keeping it a publicly owned facility has
failed. "We haven't made any money," Ceraso said.
Cornell Corrections Inc., a Houston-based, publicly traded company, was hired
in May 2001 to run the prison for $360,000 a year and to provide a warden and
deputy warden. As part of the deal, Cornell was given permission to add
one bed to each of the 40 cells that would then be leased to other counties
and the federal government. Money generated from the leases would be
paid to the county and cover the cost of Cornell's contract. The county
was expected to be paid about $400,000 for the leased beds, while Cornell
estimated it would earn about $250,000. For the fiscal year that ended
July 31, Cornell paid the county $335,000 for the leased cells. But
Warden Michael Millward, who is a Cornell employee, said the company took in
no money from those additional inmates housed at the prison. Officials
said overcrowding at the prison has left the management company unable to
allocate space to out-of-country inmates. Millward said at no time in
the last year has the prison housed more than 20 inmates from outside
Westmoreland County. While revenues have not met expectations, the cost
to run the prison has increased under Cornell's stewardship. The county
budgeted $8.5 million to run the jail in 2001 and last year spent $9.6 million.
This year the county budgeted $9 million for the jail and to date has spent
$7.3 million. "It wouldn't be ethical," Millward said of the
attempts to fill the additional beds with inmates outside of Westmoreland
County in order to generate revenue. Even though revenues from leased
cells have not met expectations, Cornell has made enough money through other
services to cover the cost of its contract, the warden said. Millward
said Cornell has increased revenues by assessing room-and-board charges to
inmates and collecting restitution payments from inmates who are allowed to
leave the prison each day for work assignments. Conner said the county
should consider turning over all functions of the prison to a private company
of return its management to county control by hiring a warden. Conner
was rebuffed last year in his attempts to turn over all operations of the
prison to a private company. Ceraso voted against hiring Cornell,
saying he preferred that the county hire a new warden who would work directly
for the prison board and commissioners. He said yesterday that he still
wants the county to hire its own warden when Cornell's two-year contract
expires in May. (Tribune-Review)

August
18, 2007 Times-Tribune
The Lackawanna County Prison’s medical director was fired from a similar post
at a Pittsburgh-based health care services company in 1999 in an apparent
dispute over a new treatment for hepatitis C in state prisons the company
served. Company officials could not be reached to explain his termination,
but in a lawsuit later filed against the company, Dr. Edward J. Zaloga
claimed he was fired because he disagreed with a plan to begin treating the
liver disease with a then-new, unproven drug that ultimately would be a waste
of taxpayer money. The treatment “would waste more than $7 million of the
(state) taxpayers’ money on unnecessary and unwarranted medical treatment,”
he charged in a suit filed against Wexford Health Sources Inc. in November
1999. He claimed in his suit that his management practices had created a
profit for the company of $4.1 million, and the company — which at the time
was trying to get the state to pay for the new treatment — feared it might
have to pay for treating inmates if the state found out about its profits. He
was fired for raising the concerns, he alleged. The suit demanded more than
$1 million in unpaid wages, expenses, lawyer’s fees and punitive damages. The
company, in its legal responses, denied earning anywhere near $4 million. It
denied his other claims as well. County judges rejected Dr. Zaloga’s suit in
separate rulings in 2002 and 2004 with one judge writing that Dr. Zaloga
failed to establish “a report of wrongdoing ... or waste.” Wexford in its
legal filings acknowledged firing Dr. Zaloga but did not say why. Dr. Zaloga
is now co-owner of a company, Correctional Care Inc., of Moosic, that
provides medical services to county prison inmates, and oversees those
services. A former inmate, Shakira Staten, 22, a federal prisoner who gave
birth at the prison July 10 and has since been transferred to Adams County
Prison to await sentencing, has sued him, the company and the prison in
federal court. She claims she was a victim of cruel and unusual punishment
because her pleas to be taken to the hospital when she went into labor were
ignored and she had the baby alone in a cell. The county Prison Board this
week apologized for the way she treated and blamed a Correctional Care nurse
for “serious errors of judgment” that included failing to properly monitor
her labor and unnecessarily delaying taking her to the hospital. The board
barred the nurse from working in the prison. A secretary in the company’s
office said Dr. Zaloga was not available for comment and would only reply to
written questions. A secretary at Wexford Health Sources said no company
officials would be available to comment until next week. Dr. Zaloga was
Wexford’s regional medical director for its central Pennsylvania operations
from Feb. 1 to Sept. 29, 1999, the day the company’s operations director
dismissed him, according to court records.

June 10, 2003The
company that provides health care to inmates in Pennsylvania's 26 state
prisons will terminate its contract with the state, citing cost
overruns. The state's $493 million contract with Wexford Health
Services Inc. was to run through October 2007. The company cited
soaring pharmaceutical costs and an unexpected increase in the number of
state inmates for the decision. Wexford, in a January letter, told the
state Department of Corrections that it planned to end the contract in
September. (AP)

York County Prison
York, Pennsylvania
Prison Health Services
May 20, 2008 The York Dispatch
York County no longer must defend itself against a federal discrimination
lawsuit filed late last month by a former nurse at the county prison. York
City resident Oreal Marsh, who is black, alleges in the lawsuit that she was
subject to a pattern of discrimination including racially themed comments and
abuse. She claims in the April 30 lawsuit that she was hired in October 2005
and fired almost a year later without warning or reason. The alleged reason
was that she had received a note from an inmate, according to the lawsuit.
Marsh lists both York County and Prison Health Services Inc. as defendants in
the lawsuit. Dismissed: But York County was dismissed as a defendant via a
May 16 court order precipitated by a letter from county solicitor Mike
Flannelly to Marsh's legal team. He argued Marsh was never a prison employee,
he said, and her lawyers agreed. The company provided contracted health
services at the prison until 2006. The current provider is PrimeCare Medical
Inc. "Their legal action was more appropriately directed at Prison
Health Services," he said. Because they agreed, the county is able to
save money, time and effort trying to prove in court that the county shouldn't
be involved in the lawsuit, Flannelly said. Prison Health Services has not
yet responded to Marsh's allegations in court. But a representative has said
the company has policies and procedures that offer zero tolerance for
discrimination. Through a representative at their law office, Marsh's
attorneys declined comment.

May
12, 2008 The York DispatchA former nurse at the York County Prison filed a federal lawsuit last
week alleging gender and race discrimination. York City resident Oreal Marsh,
who is black, alleges in the lawsuit that she was subject to a pattern of
discrimination including racially themed comments and abuse. Marsh claims in
the April 30 lawsuit that she was hired in October 2005 and fired almost a
year later without warning or reason. The alleged reason was that she had
received a note from an inmate, according to the lawsuit. Only four: She was
one of only four black nurses out of almost 70 working at the prison, Marsh
said in the lawsuit. She is seeking an unspecified amount of lost wages, health
benefits and other compensation. The lawsuit names York County and Prison
Health Services Inc. as defendants. The county contracted with Prison Health
Services for medical care at the facility until 2006, according to Warden
Mary Sabol. The current provider is PrimeCare Medical Inc. County Solicitor
Mike Flannelly said he could not comment on the lawsuit without first seeing
it. But he said the county has a blanket nondiscrimination policy in place.
Prison Health Services said it, too, has a similar policy, said spokeswoman
Susan Morgenstern in an e-mailed statement .
"We have not yet seen this lawsuit," she said. "But our
company policies and procedures are designed to ensure respect for all
employees, with zero tolerance for discrimination."

September
13, 2003
Let’s say you need a plumber to come to your house. Now you have to decide,
to quote the “Ghostbusters” movie, “Who ya gonna call?” You probably
wouldn’t call a plumber who screwed up the last time he came to the house,
particularly if your neighbors have told you the same plumber messed up at
their places, too. Well, maybe you like the guy. You’ve known him for
years, and you think he’s getting a bad rap. Still, it’s your money, and you
want to spend it wisely. At the least, you’d have to seriously consider
hiring a different plumber. That’s why comments made this week by Tom
Hogan, York County Prison warden, and county Commissioner James Donahue seem
so cavalier. The situation is this, and keep
in mind the plumber at your house when you read this: The commissioners
are considering a $4 million contract with a private provider of prison
health care. Prison Health Services of Brentwood, Tenn., has performed
medical care and health monitoring to the county prison since 1993. That
includes health screenings of new inmates — an important task for all kinds
of obvious reasons. As the Daily Record’s Jim Lynch reported Wednesday,
the company recently fell behind by more than 500 inmate exams — not five,
not 50, but 500 — in York County. Mr. Lynch’s story also detailed a number of
other troubling examples of the firm’s performance, from New York City to
Nevada. In Florida, Pinellas County switched providers in 1994 after
determining that Prison Health Services couldn’t fulfill its duties.
The company defends its procedures, noting that any company doing what it
does will get targeted for inmate lawsuits. “We’re not perfect, but we
certainly don’t sweep things under the rug,” said Doyle Moore, the company’s
founder. In York County’s case, according to Mr. Hogan, the backlog has
been cleared up and was “immediately corrected” once prison brass was made
aware of the situation. The explanation was, ironically, that the firm had
people out sick and fell behind. “My only concern was that they didn’t
feel it was necessary to discuss it with me,” Mr. Hogan said. Even more
surprising was this comment from Mr. Donahue: “I really don’t think that
what’s happened in other places matters here.” Mr. Donahue should know
better. Of course it matters. This company offers the same service in other
prisons. Surely during the commissioner’s many years as an executive with
Sears he would have checked out potential problems involving vendors who were
being paid millions of dollars. According to Mr. Hogan, bid petitions
are out for a new contract, and Prison Health Services appears to be the low
bidder for another four-year pact. The firm’s chances of continuing to have
the county contract appear bright. It may very well be that this
company is the best firm to provide this service. Still, we’d feel a lot more
confident if the public officials making the decision acted as though they
were interested in recognizing that the circumstances demand tougher
scrutiny. Being a smart consumer makes sense whether you’re running a
house or a business. Or a prison.
(Daily Record)

December
26, 2002
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service chose the Marriot over Motel
6 for its prisoners last week. And guess who will be paying for room
service. The "Marriott" - a 300-bed detention facility in
Elizabeth, N.J. - charges $160 per day for prisoners to reside there.
"Motel 6" - the York County prison - charges $60 per day.
Yet, some mastermind in the federal government. someone
who is clearly overpaid, decided to ship INS detainees to the Elizabeth
Contract Detention Facility and shut down its relationship with York
County. (York Daily Record)

December
23, 2002
County commissioners have decided to end the contract to house U.S. INS
detainees at the county prison. Nine male prisoners went ot the
Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility in NJ, which York County Warden Tom
Hogan said charges the INS $160 per day to house a prisoner. Many of
the prisoner workers that would be let go are represented by Teamsters Local
430, and local president Kevin Cicak said he remains optimistic that the
contract between the INS and York County may yet be worked out.
"The federal government is the only institution I can think of that
would look at what they are paying, decide they're paying too much, and go
out and pay 2 1/2 times more," he said. (AP)

December
20, 2002
By the time York county commissioners vote whether to accept or reject the
latest contract offer from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
today, their decision may be moot. Federal officials have already begun
diverting INS detainees from York County Prison. And so far, those
detainees are being sent to prisons that charge the government more than York
County does for housing them. INS officials routed two women to a
government prison in Arlington, Va. Nine men wound up in a private
prison in Elizabeth, N.J. York County and INS officials have been in
negotiations for weeks since the establishment of the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security. At issue is the $60 per diem rate York County wants
to charge the federal government for housing detainees. Earlier this
year, auditors with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector
General told the INS it was paying York County too much. What is
puzzling to some, including Rep. Todd Platts, is why the INS is sending its
detainees to prisons that charge far more than the $60 fee at York County
Prison. According to Platts and Hogan, the Elizabeth Contract Detention
Facility charges the INS a daily rate of $150 to $160 - roughly 2 1/2 times
the rate here. (Daily Record)